ERS Charts of Note
Subscribe to get highlights from our current and past research, Monday through Friday, or see our privacy policy.
Get the latest charts via email, or on our mobile app for 
and 
Monday, March 21, 2011
Methane digester systems capture methane from lagoon or pit manure storage facilities and use it as a fuel to generate electricity or heat. In addition to providing a renewable source of energy, digesters can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide other environmental benefits. Methane digesters have not been widely adopted in the United States mainly because the costs of constructing and maintaining these systems have exceeded the value of the benefits provided to the operator. But policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could make such biogas recovery facilities profitable for many livestock producers. Without a carbon market (when the price is zero), no hog and few dairy operations find it profitable to adopt a digester. As the carbon price increases, more operations adopt digesters, lowering emissions. At a carbon price of $13, greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 9.8 and 12.4 million tons (carbon dioxide equivalent) for the dairy and hog sectors, respectively. This amounts to reductions of 61-62 percent of manure-generated methane in these sectors. A doubling of the carbon price to $26 could cause manure-based methane emissions from dairy and hogs together to be reduced by 78 percent. This chart was originally published in Carbon Prices and the Adoption of Methane Digesters on Dairy and Hog Farms, EB-16, February 2011.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
USDA Agricultural Projections to 2020, released in February 2011, provides longrun projections for the farm sector for the next 10 years. These annual projections cover agricultural commodities, agricultural trade, and aggregate indicators of the sector, such as farm income and food prices. Use of U.S. corn for the production of ethanol is projected to continue rising, but less rapidly than the sharp pace over the past 5 years. Global economic growth underlies increases in U.S. corn exports. This chart was originally published in USDA Agricultural Projections to 2020, OCE-111, February 2011.