USDA’s new interim rule for climate-smart crops provides more flexibility for farmers. To qualify for incentives, including the 45Z tax credit, farmers can use cover crops, nutrient management or adopt no-till or reduced tillage practices. This is different than the all-or-none bundled approach in previous rules. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also released the Feedstock Carbon Intensity Calculator to assess greenhouse gas emissions at the field level. “Agriculture now is in a position to say if we use corn in this county and we use it in a no-till circumstance with properly timed fertilizer, this is the benefit to the ethanol production facility that will be producing the SAF so they, in turn, can document to whoever’s purchasing SAF that they did result in a CI score that is more than 50 percent efficient, relative to current jet fuel.” Three crops are recognized as biofuel feedstocks; corn, soybeans, and sorghum.
