{"id":23463,"date":"2014-12-02T02:34:52","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T00:34:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biofuelsdigest.com\/bdigest\/2014\/11\/18\/isu-study-says-iluc-models-not-showing-the-real-picture\/"},"modified":"2014-12-01T14:54:15","modified_gmt":"2014-12-01T12:54:15","slug":"new-university-study-real-world-data-casts-grave-doubt-carb-epa-land-use-models","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/new-university-study-real-world-data-casts-grave-doubt-carb-epa-land-use-models\/","title":{"rendered":"New study: real-world data casts grave doubt on CARB, EPA land use models"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 A comprehensive analysis of real-world land use data released Friday by Iowa State University raises serious doubts and concerns about the reliability and accuracy of economic models used by regulatory agencies to penalize ethanol for purported \u201cindirect land use changes,\u201d or ILUC. The\u00a0new report<\/a>\u00a0found that farmers around the world have responded to higher crop prices in the past decade mainly by using existing land resources more efficiently\u2014not<\/em>\u00a0by converting forest and grassland into cropland.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The study, conducted by Prof. Bruce Babcock and Zabid Iqbal at ISU\u2019s Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD), examined actual observed global land use changes in the period spanning from 2004 to 2012. The real-world data was analyzed and compared to predictions from the economic models used by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop ILUC penalty factors for regulated biofuels.<\/p>\n

According to the paper, \u201c\u2026the primary land use change response of the world\u2019s farmers in the last 10 years has been to use available land resources more efficiently rather than to expand the amount of land brought into production. This finding is not new. \u2026But this finding has not been recognized by regulators who calculate indirect land use.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis study should serve as a badly needed reality check for CARB, EPA, and regulators in Oregon and Washington who are implementing low carbon fuels policies,\u201d said RFA President and CEO Bob Dinneen. \u201cThere is simply no defensible science or empirical evidence to support the continued penalization of ethanol and other biofuels for purported ILUC emissions. Favoring the results of flawed and arcane computer models over real-world observations is just bad public policy. It is time to set the models aside and take a hard look at what has actually been happening with land use in the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dinneen continued, \u201cNearly seven years have come and gone since Timothy Searchinger\u2019s erroneous article in\u00a0Science<\/em>\u00a0magazine introduced the ILUC theory. Now, we have the benefit of hindsight\u2014and it shows that increased crop production has been accommodated through more effective use of the existing agricultural land base, not through slashing forests and churning up native grassland as pre-supposed by Searchinger, CARB, and EPA. The doomsday predictions from their models were just plain wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

The authors refer to more efficient use of existing agricultural land resources as \u201cintensive change,\u201d while conversion of non-agricultural land (e.g., grassland or forest) to cropland is called \u201cextensive change.\u201d\u00a0 The study found that outside of Africa, \u201c\u2026the aggregate intensive change in land use was almost 15 times as large as extensive changes. This wide disparity between more intensive use of land and more extensive use means that the reliability of current models used to estimate indirect would be dramatically increased if they were modified to account for non-yield intensification of land use.\u201d<\/p>\n

The more efficient land use practices examined include growing multiple crops on the same land in a single year (double- or triple-cropping), increasing the amount of planted cropland that is harvested, and reducing fallow (idle) cropland and temporary pasture. The economic models used by CARB and EPA have been unable to account for these efficiencies and their impacts on land use change emissions. Importantly, higher crop yields were not included in the ISU study\u2019s methodology, meaning the results likely understate the gains in land use efficiency witnessed over the past decade.<\/p>\n

Ignoring the more efficient use of existing cropland means both the CARB and EPA models overstate conversion of non-agricultural lands, according to the report: \u201cThe pattern of recent land use changes suggests that existing estimates of greenhouse gas emissions caused by land conversions due to biofuel production are too high because they are based on models that do not allow for increases in non-yield intensification of land use. Intensification of land use does not involve clearing forests or plowing up native grasslands that lead to large losses of carbon stocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other key findings from the study include:<\/p>\n