Who's the Boss? The Salt-water, fresh-water divide in agricultural research

In Washington, a routine media query turned up an interesting fact in the way that support for agricultural research is divided in the US government. Reporter Bob Brooks followed up on the Digest’s story on phosphorus reserves with the USDA Agricultural Research Service, asking about opportunities with and research in aqua farming and salt-water tolerant species.

“USDA’s scope is limited to fresh water species. NOAA handles seawater-related stuff,” replied Robert Fireovid, National Program Leader – Bioenergy. Doubtless the correct answer, but is it the wise answer? Is there not a convergence expected between the development of fresh-water and salt-water feedstocks, and does the US government really intend to keep this bifurcation of responsibility, with all the opportunities for loss of momentum and confusion that might entail? Already, there is significant research ongoing into both fresh-water and salt-water algae, most microalgae and macroalgae.

On the salt-water side, companies such as Algenol, Aurora Algae, BAL Architecture, Dupont, Live Fuels and Statoil are engaged in the development of salt-water based biofuels feedstocks.

Perhaps even more interestingly, companies such as Ceres are hard at work breeding traits such as salt-water tolerance into switchgrass and other bioenergy feedstocks. And many companies in the development of microalgae have acknowledged the importance, such as Sapphire Energy, of utilizing brackish water (with elevated salt content) rather than fresh-water.

We are concerned that an arbitrary division of responsibility and asymmteric funding may cause either salt-water or fresh-water feedstock research to falter, not on the merits, but as a consequence of funding and oversight issues. It’s an item for the US government to carefully consider – especially as the access to affordable feedstocks is considered to be a key to affordable near-term biofuels. If not for that reason – then simply because the aquafarming imperative is likely to become only more important as world population increases, with its consequent increases for food, fuel, feed and fiber.