A diverse panel representing environmental, agricultural and governmental perspectives on energy sat for a midday discussion at the E3 Renewable Energy Conference. In the end, all four acknowledged that farm-based renewables will have a place in the nation’s and the world’s energy market for a long time to come.

Panel moderator Jon Foley, director of the Institute for the Environment at the University of Minnesota, posed the overarching question: “how do we provide sustainable food, fuel and fiber to a nine billion-plus population by mid-century?”

Rick Tolman, the CEO of National Corn Growers Association, offered an optimistic vision of renewable energy and corn ethanol’s place in it that none of the other panelists could refute.

“I have a lot of confidence in our ability to innovate,” said Tolman. “I don’t want us to be complacent, but I do believe that for every challenge we are facing today there is a solution right around the corner. We need a (carbon) standard. We don’t want to pick a single winner, but rather develop the whole portfolio of solutions and corn ethanol will be just one of the contributors to the solution.”

He agreed with Nathaniel Greene, director of renewable energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, who said that along with the increased pressure on agriculture to deliver food and fiber and biofuels, it must also deliver “ecosystem services” such as carbon sequestration, prevention of soil erosion, maintenance of air and water quality, habitats and other aids to biodiversity. Greene agreed with Michael Doane, the representative from Monsanto Company, who said the greatest threat to biodiversity and the environment is not U.S. agriculture, but low yield agriculture as practiced in most of the developing world.

Foley pointed out that modern agricultural practices - using today’s equipment, inputs and techniques in Latin America, Africa and Asia - would allow the world to feed itself without cultivating one additional acre of land not already in use for farming.

Doane pointed out that agricultural yield has doubled six times since 1800, and it is poised to—in fact it must in order to meet the world’s needs, double yield once again within the next two generations.

Greene said that rather than appoint a single fuel technology as the winner of the renewables race, to use some method like carbon cap and trade, to “put a value into the system,” so that the market naturally rewards low carbon fuels of whatever kind and to the degree of their carbon reduction capabilities while causing the market to shift from fossil fuels.

It was the sixth annual Energy, Economic and Environmental (E3) conference, a gathering sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment, held at the River Center in Saint Paul. Many of the 750 attendees were university students, some of whom had contributed research posters featured in the main foyer.

The exhibition hall offered space for 60-some organizations to host booths and offer information to attendees. Minnesota Corn Growers Association’s exhibit told the story of smarter farming that is producing more grain per acre than ever before, and using fewer inputs to accomplish this.