From Field to Fuel: The Economics of Biofuel Energy

A panel with economists Colin Carter (UC-Davis) and Madhu Khanna (UIUC). Recorded February 20, 2014. Biofuels--ethanols and diesels made from the likes of corn, soy, sugarcane, palm oil and switchgrass--increasingly define a significant part of the world's agricultural as well as energy landscape. As part of the Global Energies series quarter on Biofuels, CIS presented a panel with two acclaimed energy economists, Colin Carter (UC-Davis) and Madhu Khanna (UIUC), who shared their research on the costs and benefits of biofuel production in the US and beyond. The discussion was moderated by Jim Sallee of the UChicago Harris School of Public Policy. Colin Carter is Distinguished Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis and Director of the University of California's Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics. Colin was born and raised on a farm in Alberta, Canada. After completing a B.A. and M.Sc. at the University of Alberta, he obtained a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1980. Colin has published widely in the areas of international trade, agricultural policy, futures and commodity markets, the economics of China's agriculture, and the economics of biotechnology adoption in agriculture. He has received a number of professional awards for Teaching, Quality of Research, Quality of Communication, and for Distinguished Policy Contribution. Colin Carter was named Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association in 2000 in recognition of his many contributions to the field of agricultural economics. Madhu Khanna is a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. Her research focuses on environmental policy analysis and incentives for adoption of environmentally friendly technologies. Her current work is examining the economics, land use and environmental implications of biofuel production and she has co-edited the Handbook of Bioenergy Economics and Policy. She is a University of Illinois Scholar for 2004-07, a Leopold Leadership Fellow of the Woods Institute at Stanford University and a recipient of the Paul A. Funk recognition from the College of ACES, University of Illinois. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and is serving on the Science Advisory Board of US EPA. She current serves as the Chair of the Board of the South Asian Network of Development and Environmental Economics. She has also served on the editorial boards of several agricultural and environmental economics journals and is currently editor of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. This event was presented by the Center for International Studies, the Program on the Global Environment and the Environment, Agriculture and Food Working Group as part of "Global Energies: A Public Inquiry into the Ecology, Science and Politics of Energy in the 21st Century." Learn more at http://globalenergies.uchicago.edu.