Why Is "Big Soybean" Getting A Pass?
Would an oil company get roasted for this or what:
Call it a soybean spat. The University of
Minnesota isn't going to receive any research funding from the state's
soybean growers council until the two parties have a heart-to-heart
talk next week.The Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council voted to
temporarily suspend its financial support after a study co-authored by
U researchers in the journal Science said increased use of biofuel
crops like corn and soybeans could worsen global warming, not lessen
it.The council typically picks up the tab for $1 million to $2
million a year for research on such things as how to increase soybean
yields and how to improve marketing, said Jim Palmer, president of the
Minnesota Soybean Growers Association.The funding relationship has gone on for decades and was good until now, both the growers and the university said.
The study, published Feb. 7 by the University of Minnesota and
the Nature Conservancy, an environmental advocacy group, warned that
converting prairie or peatland to cropland for corn and soybeans would
release more carbon stored in plants and the ground as carbon dioxide,
the main greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.
My dad is a University of Iowa grad and has tried for years to get them to demonstrate a higher quality of scholarship around the ethanol issue. Good freaking luck.
MJ:
As someone who has worked in the U of M system, I am extremely proud of the researchers who conducted this study. They thumbed their nose at the rent-seekers in the ethanol lobby and the opportunist politicians who are all too happy to support them. The applied economics department, in particular, has staunchly resisted ethanol's green wave. $1 or 2 million is not a lot of money, and I'd be willing to support with my taxes research funding to replace the support that Big Soybean has withheld, especially if the result was more objective research.
March 14, 2008, 12:01 am