Threat to bark supplies from biomass energy rule eases

A final USDA rule is being published this week to implement the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP). The program, a component of the 2008 Farm Bill, seeks to encourage development of biomass sources from agriculture and forestry for energy generation.

While the program’s goals are laudable, many in the industry panicked last winter as suppliers of softwood and hardwood bark – the primary component of growing media for most containerized nursery crops and an important source of landscape mulch – notified customers that the BCAP program would provide new federal matching payments to encourage these materials to be diverted to energy generation. At best, the price for these critical inputs would spike upward; at worst, bark would no longer be available at all, causing chaos for green industry businesses already reeling from the economic downturn.

According to Craig Regelbrugge, ANLA’s vice president for government relations, “a bit of promising news is at hand.” The USDA’s BCAP final rule expressly states that “…the purpose of this regulation is to provide incentives for the cultivation of new biomass for new markets rather than divert biomass from existing markets.”

The rule sets up a structure where USDA will have the authority to deny market payments for potential biomass sources that already go to higher-value products. The rule goes on to define higher-value products as follows:
“Higher value products may include, but are not limited to, products such as mulch, fiberboard, nursery media, lumber, or paper…”

USDA received over 24,000 comments on the BCAP proposed rule, and many of those came from green-industry businesses following a national/state association grassroots initiative organized by the national Lighthouse Program.

“This good news underscores the fact that a coordinated national green industry grassroots program isn’t a luxury, it is a necessity,” said ANLA president Bob Lyons of Sunleaf Nursery in Ohio.

Regelbrugge thanked USDA for clarifying the intended purpose and scope of the program. “USDA has rightly affirmed that BCAP is about development of new energy sources, and should not wreak havoc on established markets and industries. We thank the decision-makers for listening to our most serious concerns,” he added.