With unprecedented growth in demand for corn to produce ethanol and for soybeans to produce biodiesel fuel, prices being paid for both commodities are approaching record levels. High demand and prices for these row crops could result in the reduction of farmland acres devoted to wildlife habitat, according to the Wildlife Management Institute.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimated that the amount of corn used to make ethanol will increase 34 percent, to 2.15 billion bushels, in the marketing year that began September 1, 2006. In addition, the agency predicted a 17-percent increase in the use of vegetable oils for fuels, including soybean oil, to 21.6 million tons during 2007.

While the temptation to cash in on these high commodity prices may be too much for some producers to resist, despite the cost to conservation and wildlife, corn and soybean-driven energy production is likely to be a fairly short-term phenomenon. According to a U.S. Energy Department report, if the nation's entire corn crop were devoted to energy production, it would only replace about 15 percent of the country's petroleum use.

In addition to this relatively low maximum potential, there are several other problems associated with large-scale use of corn and soybeans for energy production. First, conversion of wildlife habitat and conservation cover crops to row crops will have adverse impacts on wildlife and water quality. Second, diversion of these crops from the nation's food supply to energy production very likely would drive up the cost of food. Third, corn ethanol and soybean biodiesel production are carbon positive, i.e., their production adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, further contributing to global warming. And fourth, ethanol production from corn is not very efficient; it takes nearly as much energy to produce a unit of fuel from corn as is generated by the process. These shortcomings have some policy makers looking at other alternatives for renewable sources of energy.

One of the most promising options is to make ethanol from cellulose rather than from starch, which is the way ethanol currently is produced. The Institute of Agriculture at the University of Tennessee projects that the technology to produce cellulose-based ethanol on a commercially viable basis will be in place by 2012. Wood chips, switchgrass and mixtures of various grasses and forbs have all been promoted as feedstock for cellulose-based ethanol production.

Using cellulose to produce ethanol has a number of advantages over the current corn/starch-based process. For one thing, it would have less impact on the supply of grains and row crops that are the basis for the U.S. food supply. For another, it appears that cellulose-based ethanol production has the potential to be much more energy-conversion efficient than are starch-based operations. Scientists at Battelle Laboratory in Columbus, Ohio, found that net energy-conversion rates of switchgrass were nearly three times higher than those of corn for ethanol production.

In addition, there appears to be some significant advantages to a cellulose-based approach for wildlife and the environment. Researchers at the University of Minnesota demonstrated that diverse mixtures of prairie flora planted on degraded agricultural lands are carbon negative. Prairie plants store more carbon in their roots and the soil than is released by the fossil fuels needed to grow and convert them to biofuels. The researchers also showed these prairie mixtures compared quite favorably to corn and monocultures of switchgrass in terms of bio-energy production on the degraded tracts of agricultural lands.

Using diverse stands of grasses and forbs on less than prime agricultural lands, coupled with wildlife-friendly management?such as leaving adequate stubble height after harvesting operations, to promote nesting the following spring?could be a relatively practical approach to addressing the country's energy needs in a way that enhances wildlife habitat rather than undermine hard-gained conservation practices in place.