The term “biobased product” means a a commercial or industrial product (other than food or feed) that is- (A) composed, in whole or in significant part, of biological products, including renewable domestic agricultural materials, renewable chemicals, and forestry materials; or (B) an intermediate ingredient or feedstock. Biobased Products are derived from raw materials such as plants and other renewable agricultural, marine, and forestry materials. This definition was established in federal regulation nearly 20 years ago to allow the U.S. Department of Agriculture to operate a new program established in Section 9002 of the 2002 farm bill, known formally as the federal biobased product preference program, or more informally USDA ‘BioPreferred”.
The main goals of this effort are to increase income for farmers by increasing demand for the raw commodities they produce, while helping the environment and mitigating climate change by replacing petroleum as the main feedstock ingredient for many industrial and commercial products, such as plastics, lubricants, and enzymes.
Public discussion of such an initiative was launched by a 1995 report produced by the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences entitled “Biobased Industrial Products: Priorities for Research and Commercialization.” The report noted that many industrial chemicals were largely derived from biomass and other agricultural products in the United States until the 1920’s, when manufacturers began to replace them with petroleum-based products, which were less expensive to produce at the time. The committee selected by the NRC to prepare the report looked at the opportunities offered in three areas: (1) recent advances in biotechnology and chemical and material sciences, (2) increases in U.S. agricultural and forest production capacity, and (3) the advantages to the U.S. economy of enhancing industrial growth in rural areas through biobased products. The NRC report found that there was sufficient waste biomass available on an annual basis at that time to replace oil in the production of the industrial chemicals for which biomass was a feasible feedstock, as well as contribute to the country’s liquid fuel supply.
In 1999, President Bill Clinton issued an Executive Order (No. 13134) required the development of a national strategy, including research and development and private sector incentives, to “stimulate the creation and early adoption of technologies needed to make biobased products and bioenergy cost-competitive in national and international markets.” It also established an Interagency Council on Biobased Products and Bioenergy. He enunciated a goal of tripling the U.S. use of biobased products and fuels by 2010.
Section 9002 of the 2002 farm bill, sponsored by then-Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Tom Harkin (D, IA), had two main provisions--establish a preference program for government procurement of biobased products whose prices and performance were comparable with conventionally produced products in the same category, and establish a voluntary labeling program for the consumer-facing products that qualify for such a designation. The rationale behind the program was that the size of the federal market for these types of products, estimated to be several hundred billion dollars, might help spur development of a range of products that would also be suitable for the consumer market. Unlike the NRC report and the Clinton Executive Order, the statutory authority for this program specifically excluded biofuels, chiefly ethanol and biodiesel, and electricity produced from biomass from eligibility.
The initial regulations for this program were promulgated in 2005, and included only six product categories that would be considered for preferential federal procurement. Over the last two decades, as a result of additional research and product development and more expansive statutory authority granted in the 2014 and 2018 farm bills, the “BioPreferred” product category list has grown to 109 product categories encompassing more than 14,000 distinct commercial and industrial products. As of 2019, more than 3,000 individual products had qualified for the USDA Certified Biobased Product label. Nearly half of U.S. states also have some sort of biobased product preference requirement as well.
USDA has been commissioning annual reports on the economic impact of the U.S. biobased products industry since 2013, written by outside experts from academia. The most recent one, covering developments through 2016, was released in July of 2019. The study found that 4.65 million Americans were employed either directly by the bio-based products industry or indirectly in spillover jobs in 2016, generating more than $459 billion in value-added activity to the U.S. economy. These figures represent 16 percent and 24 percent increases respectively over similar estimates generated for 2013. As with the BioPreferred program itself, these numbers exclude impacts from the biofuels sector, which is a substantial economic driver in a number of states as well.
Examples of products now available as a result of this program include biodegradable, disposable food service items, such as those now used at Rose Garden Arena in Portland, OR, home of the NBA’s Trail Blazers. These products are recyclable, replacing 2 million pounds of plastics which otherwise went into Portland’s landfills every year. At the headquarters of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), mapmakers now use ink derived from soybean oil to print their products.
The prospect for more advances in this area are strong, especially if USDA puts more resources behind this program as part of the current drive to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from agriculture. To date, much of the attention has been focused on what farmers can do to contribute proactively to this effort by adopting new conservation practices, but making and consuming more biobased products instead of petroleum-based products can have a similar impact.
