Biofuels farm offers hope, potential in Granville

By Todd McGee
Communications Director

From a distance, the 400-acre farm located just off Hillsboro Street in Oxford in the middle of Granville County looks like a lot of the farms that sprinkle North Carolina's rural landscape. Fields full of soybeans, sugarbeets and sweet potatoes dot the landscape.

Eleven types of crops – including the sweet sorghum shown above – are currently being grown at the 400-acre N.C. Biofuels Campus located in Granville County. (Photo courtesy Brian Long/N.C. Department of Agriculture)

But these crops and the others grown on the site – including switchgrass, grain and sweet sorghum, and loblolly pines – are not being developed for human consumption. These crops are at the leading edge of research into the next generation of biofuels.

Each year, North Carolinians consume more than 5.5 billion gallons of petroleum-based liquid fuels – none of which is produced in-state. Researchers hope that the experiments being conducted on the farm, located on the N.C. Biofuels Campus, will help transform the state into the Saudi Arabia of biofuels.

Dignitaries, researchers and entrepreneurs gathered at the campus Aug. 31 as part of the kickoff for North Carolina Grows Biofuels. The Biofuels Center of North Carolina is attempting to develop a statewide industry to reduce the United States' dependence on foreign sources of petroleum. The center has set a bold goal to replace 10 percent of liquid fuels sold in North Carolina with locally produced biofuels by 2017.

"We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Rep. G.K. Butterfield, whose district includes Granville County. "We must also become less dependent on foreign oil. We need a reliable, domestically produced source of liquid fuels. We need biofuels, and we need them now."

Butterfield has been a big supporter of federal funds for biofuels research and helped secure a federal appropriation to build a business incubator at the N.C. Biofuels Center, said Steven Burke, director of the center.

Butterfield is attracted to the biofuels industry because he sees it as a way to boost North Carolina's economy, particularly in rural areas, while developing a product that will provide positive environmental and fiscal impacts to citizens.

"Congress is trying to provide further incentives to drive the development of second generation biofuels," he said. "It will be difficult, it will be costly and it will not be without obstacles.

"We are looking to make North Carolina the leader. This facility is a product of local, state and federal governments working together. This facility is the only one of its kind in the United States of America."

Besides the federal appropriation, the North Carolina budget included $5 million for the Biofuels Center. Rep. Jim Crawford, who represents Granville County in the N.C. House of Representatives and serves as a chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, helped secure the funds for the Biofuels Center in the recently adopted state budget.

Crawford said the fact that legislators included the appropriation during such a difficult budget year shows the potential the biofuels industry could have to "help rural people in North Carolina make a living."

"This is the only place where we have a comprehensive center for growing the product to production of biofuel and all steps in between," he said. "The potential is fantastic. We are counting on great things from the Biofuels Center."

Butterfield said a recent survey conducted by the Census Bureau rated his Congressional district as one of the poorest in the nation. He said he believes the biofuels industry offers hope to farmers – particularly tobacco farmers, who are looking for a way to continue making a living from the land.

"My dream is for the biofuels industry to be what tobacco and textiles once were," he said.

"What we've got to do in North Carolina is to grow a new industry," said Steve Troxler, North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture. "Things have changed. We need to grow this new industry so we can keep farmers on farms. We need to get started today and make sure this happens in North Carolina. We can become the Saudi Arabia of biofuels. Everything is in place here."