WASHINGTON, March 14, 2024– The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today launched a strategy that will increase biomass supply chain resiliency for domestic biobased item production, while likewise advancing ecological sustainability and market chances for little and mid-sized manufacturers.
The report– Constructing a Resilient Biomass Supply: A Plan to Enable the Bioeconomy in America (PDF, 2.8 MB) — is among the crucial USDA deliverables of President Biden’s Executive Order 14081, which was provided in 2022 and specified strong objectives and brand-new concerns indicated to catalyze action inside and beyond federal government to advance America’s domestic bioeconomy.
“The increasing need for biomass is a golden chance to broaden markets and develop brand-new earnings for American farmers, ranchers and forest landowners, especially in backwoods,” stated Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Council conference in Washington, DC. “We are happy to support President Biden’s dedication to advance America’s domestic bioeconomy and eventually produce brand-new markets and tasks. This extensive roadmap will enhance our production and preprocessing systems to offer rewards for manufacturers and producers, so that biomass can be utilized to sustain the American bioeconomy.”
Biomass is natural product that originates from crop residues, farming and food wastes, forest residuals, animals, in addition to biomass crops that are grown particularly as feedstocks to produce biobased items. After harvest or collection, biomass can be utilized to make sustainable fuel, fibers, electrical power, building products, plastics, insulation, individual care products, and lots of other biobased items. According to a just recently released report by USDA’s BioPreferred Program, biobased items contributed $489 billion to the U.S. economy in 2021, a more than 5% boost from $464 billion in 2020.
Driven by this clear and growing customer need for biobased items, USDA’s strategy to support a durable and properly sourced biomass supply chain advances the Department’s dedication to establishing a circular bioeconomy, where farming resources are collected, taken in and recycled in a sustainable way. Embracing circular economies guarantees that wealth and other financial advantages in the kind of tasks and other chances are produced in rural neighborhoods, while likewise alleviating the results of environment modification and nature loss.
The strategy discovers that U.S. biomass materials are plentiful. This well places the U.S. to transform biomass into biobased items if enhancements to biomass supply chain logistics and products managing innovation are made, and farmers are offered with rewards to produce biomass while lowering danger. Amongst the strategy’s suggestions are to research study and release enhanced biomass crops, make the most of woody biomass residuals, and to assist establish markets for biobased items through USDA’s BioPreferred Program.
“Strengthening research study and advancement, capability structure, and biomass market advancement will assist strengthen existing markets and catalyze brand-new markets,” stated Dr. Chavonda Jacobs-Young, USDA Chief Scientist and Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics.
This strategy offers a clear example of how working to accomplish one objective can assist move the needle on others.