Forestland owners’ willingness to consider multiple ways of supplying biomass simultaneously: Implications for biofuel incentive policies

Because socioeconomic based approaches account for relevant limiting and motivating factors, they provide a more realistic measurement of forestland owners’ willingness to supply biomass for bioenergy production- information useful to policy makers in setting production targets and in designing relevant incentive programs. Although forestland owners can supply biomass using different means, including supplying biomass from existing stands and changing land use to establish feedstock plantation, among others, previous studies mostly focus only on a given way of supplying biomass at a time. This produces incomplete information that adversely affects its use. By presenting survey takers in Virginia and Texas three different ways of supplying biomass at the same time, we determine forestland owners’ willingness to consider multiple ways of supplying biomass simultaneously and identify the factors that predict such behavior, assess overlap in forestland owners across the different ways of supplying biomass, and assess if and how respondents’ forest management plans and sustainability concerns correspond with their supply decision. Our results show a higher and more articulated rate of willingness to supply biomass than reported in previous studies. The results also suggest that opportunities exist for synergizing programs that incentivize disparate ways of supplying biomass.