In recognition of Earth Day, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Commission Katrina Kessler announced a $75,000 grant to Forever Green to help fund the 1M Acre Study.
Soon a broad group of partners convened by the MBOLD Coalition will launch a study that will build a roadmap to 1 million acres of winter camelina in our region. Led by an independent expert, or team of experts, this roadmap will lay out the critical needs and actions to break through barriers in research, on-farm economics, supply chain and market development, policy, and beyond.
The Core Team Members on the Study will be:
UMN Forever Green Initiative
MBOLD coalition
Minnesota SAF Hub
Friends of the Mississippi River
Minnesota Environmental Partnership
McKnight Foundation
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
Minnesota Department of Agriculture
Committed funders included Builders Initiative, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, McKnight Foundation, MBOLD Coalition and Minnesota SAF Hub.
Interest in winter camelina is rapidly growing among a wide range of parties in the private, public, and advocacy sectors. This interest is driven by a suite of interlocking factors spanning new market opportunities, federal (i.e. Inflation Reduction Act, 45Z Clean Fuel Production Tax Credit, etc.) and state (i.e. low carbon fuel and/or clean transportation standards) regulatory shifts, R&D advancements, major private investments, shifting consumer preferences, and wider ecological pressures that have intensified over the last several years.
Economically, winter camelina is an oilseed crop with multiple potential end-uses. At 35-40% oil content, winter camelina could be a significant source of novel vegetable oils for fuel, feed, industrial, and food uses. The most significant market opportunity to-date for winter camelina is as a novel source of low-carbon vegetable oil for refinement into renewable fuels such as renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Current federal incentives and select State fuel policies present concrete incentives for fuel refiners that bring to market fuels with lower greenhouse gas emissions, measured by the carbon intensity (CI) score of fuel pathways. Winter camelina has a low CI score because it is a low-input crop that is grown in a fallow period and does not displace other crops on the landscape, so it creates little indirect land use change (ILUC).
In order to be a scalable crop, winter camelina oil requires robust markets beyond SAF and renewable fuels. Producers benefit (i.e. manage risk) through a diversity of market opportunities, and market applications that valorize camelina’s unique benefits can bring growers higher-value opportunities. Similarly, developing robust feed and co-product markets for high-protein meal after oil is extracted is essential for scaling WC. Additional market opportunities for WC include oil for aquaculture and equine feed, biopolymers, other bioproducts, food, and cover crop seed.
The RFP process will begin immediately, and the study will take a year to complete, from the start date.
Read the MPCA's full story.