A team of agricultural economists, environmental scientists and policy experts envisions a path toward a carbon-neutral agricultural future by expanding the reach of policies designed to promote low-carbon biofuels for transportation and aviation. In a new paper in the journal Science, the researchers propose policies that would reward farmers for adopting “climate-smart” practices when growing biofuel crops and remove the hurdles that currently thwart such efforts.

“Currently, our biofuel policies don’t reward farmers for adopting climate-smart practices,” said lead author Madhu Khanna, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics at the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “For example, they treat all corn grown for the corn-ethanol market the same, whether or not the farmers adopt those types of practices. By accounting for differences in practices implemented at the farm level and paying a premium for corn grown with climate-smart practices for corn ethanol, biofuel policies can incentivize adoption of these practices.”

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