By DEBORAH BEHRENDS
Illinois Correspondent

OAK BROOK, Ill. — Two undersecretaries of the USDA will discuss key policy issues of the rapidly evolving biofuels industry at the Farm Foundation/USDA’s June 24-25 conference, Transition to a Bioeconomy: Risk, Infrastructure and Industry Evolution.
Thomas Dorr, Undersecretary of Rural Development, will discuss issues relating to the financing of the biofuels industry. Gale Buchanan, Undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics, will focus on research and education needs of the bioeconomy. Dorr and Buchanan will be joined on the program by leaders from the energy industry both the oil and renewable
arenas and academics working on
energy issues.
“The risks and infrastructure needs of the new bioeconomy don’t always fit previous business models or management tools,” said Farm Foundation Vice President Steve Halbrook. “It is important that industry, government and academic leaders understand the opportunities and challenges the industry faces as it moves forward. Farm Foundation’s intent is to provide public and private leaders the information they need for informed decision making.”
The June conference, to convene at the Doubletree Marina, Berkeley, Calif., is a collaboration of Farm Foundation, and USDA’s Office of Energy Policy and New Uses and Economic Research Service.
Conference sessions will explore market relationships and risk management strategies. Business, legal, transportation and financial infrastructure issues will be examined, as well as potential policy questions. Conference program details are available at the Farm Foundation website www.farmfoundation.org
Registration fee is $225 if paid by June 9, after which it will be $250.
This is the second of four conferences in the Transition to a Bioeconomy series. The series is designed to inventory current knowledge of key issues of the bioeconomy, highlight lessons learned, identify future possibilities and determine information and research needs for the future. Scheduled for October 2008, the third conference in the series will address environmental and economic development impacts. The first conference in the series examined the
integration of agricultural and energy systems. The last conference in the series, slated for early 2009, will focus on the implications of a global bioeconomy.
Farm Foundation has been a catalyst on bioenergy issues since June 2004, when it led the conference Agriculture as a Consumer and Producer of Energy. For information on this and the other energy conferences Farm Foundation has presented-Biofuel, Food and Feed Tradeoff, Energy in Agriculture: Managing the Risk, Energy from Agriculture: New Technologies, Innovations and Success Stories-visit www.farmfoundation.org