Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced a $45 million federal funding effort to back biofuel production in the western United States.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced a $45 million federal funding effort to back biofuel production in the western United States.
About $1.6 million will go to producing camelina in Washington and Oregon. Camelina is an oil seed often used as a rotation crop for wheat.
…Farmers in Oregon’s Jefferson, Klamath, Umatilla, Union and Wasco counties and Washington’s Whitman County can grow camelina for use as a biodiesel fuel.
And up to 7,000 acres of hybrid poplar trees in an area surrounding a biomass conversion facility in Boardman, Ore., will be used to create liquid biofuels, USDA Farm Service Agency spokeswoman Isabel Benemelis said.
“This project (involving camelina) is going to create jobs immediately, and our hope is that over time, several thousand jobs can be created in the three-state area,” Vilsack told reporters in a conference call from Washington, D.C.
Read more at Capital Press.
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