As for indigenous production (European maize, wheat, rapeseed, etc) it's nothing more than a gimmick designed to permit continuing distribution of subsidies to industrial farming.
Second-generation: well, we've always said it might come through. And the sustainability issues might be considerably less (though some dispute that), because coppiced wood plantations and high-cellulose-yield grasses could be sustainably managed on marginal land.
But second-generation methods don't seem to be steaming ahead. What captures the attention and the $bucks/€bucks is food crops used as feedstock. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
This is why I've longishly (well, at least since early last year) argued for subsidies to be focused on soil conservation payments for perennial crops that are potential feedstocks ... so if low-heat cellulosic ethanol or other 2-gen biofuel technologies don't pan out, we still have the soil. Utsukushikereba sore de ii
and because the preponderance of "food" crops grown by agribiz are already feedstock for the industrial processes that create the industrial fodder loosely called "food" by those who have never tasted the real thing. as Pollan documents, the cracking plants already in place for processing maize into all its fractions are as massive, as technomanagerially centralised and energy-intensive as any fuel ethanol or oil production process. turning plants into industrial swill is what the "food" sector knows how to do best, they are already geared up for it... and the energy crunch comes at a time when the ultraprocessed factory food is losing ground, an inch at a time, to more wholesome dietary options... threatening to render the whole top-heavy profit-taking monopoly system obsolete. what's not to like (from the ADM/GM pov) about diversifying or lifeboating into cracking industrial corn and soy into automobile fuel? it's so similar to what they already do, there's little to no retooling -- least of all retooling of their conceptual armamentarium -- the real problem. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
