On Wednesday, the USDA announced five major agricultural research projects today aimed at developing regional, renewable energy markets, generating rural jobs, and decreasing America's dependence on foreign oil. Altogether, the five-year program will deliver more than $136 million in research and development grants to public and private sector partners in 22 states. University partners from the states of Washington, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Iowa will lead the projects, which focus in part on developing aviation biofuels from tall grasses, crop residues and forest resources.

"We have an incredible opportunity to create thousands of new jobs and drive economic development in rural communities across America by continuing to build the framework for a competitively-priced, American-made biofuels industry," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "Over the past two years, USDA has worked to help our nation develop a national biofuels economy that continues to help us out-innovate and out-compete the rest of the world while moving our nation toward a clean energy economy."

The grants came through USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). The projects will address needs across regional supply chains and will complement existing bioenergy efforts across government, academia, and the private sector. Summaries of the five projects follow:

USDA made these awards through its Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI). AFRI's sustainable bioenergy challenge area targets the development of regional systems for the sustainable production of bioenergy and biobased products that contribute significantly to reducing dependence on foreign oil; have net positive social, environmental, and rural economic impacts; and are compatible with existing agricultural systems. All grants are awarded over a period of five years, with continued funding contingent on annual project success.

AFRI is NIFA's flagship competitive grant program and was established under the 2008 Farm Bill. AFRI supports work in six priority areas: plant health and production and plant products; animal health and production and animal products; food safety, nutrition and health; renewable energy, natural resources and environment; agriculture systems and technology; and agriculture economics and rural communities.

Vilsack also highlighted how USDA is working with federal partners like the Department of Energy (DOE), Department of the Navy and the Federal Aviation Administration to improve our country's energy security and provide sustainable jobs in communities across the country. Last month, President Obama announced a partnership between USDA, DOE and Navy to invest up to $510 million during the next three years in partnership with the private sector to produce advanced, drop-in aviation and marine biofuels to power military and commercial transportation.

Renewable energy production is a key to sustainable economic development in rural America, and USDA through renewable energy programs authorized in the 2008 farm bill is working to escalate the production of biofuels to meet the 2022 Federal Renewable Fuels standard goal.

Much of this biofuel will come from feedstocks produced by America's farmers and ranchers. For example, USDA has announced the investment of $80 million payments to 160 energy producers in 41 states under the Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels (Section 9005 of the 2008 farm bill).

Payments are based on the amount of biofuels a recipient produces from renewable biomass, other than corn kernel starch. Eligible examples include biofuels derived from cellulose, crop residue, animal, food and yard waste material, biogas (landfill and sewage waste treatment gas), vegetable oil and animal fat. The payments are made to eligible producers to support and ensure an expanding production of advanced biofuels.