But Big Oil, Big Ethanol and tiny start-ups like Verenium have all failed to meet federal mandates for so-called advanced biofuels, fuels produced with agricultural waste or dedicated fuel crops like switchgrass instead of from edible grains like corn.

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Despite spending his entire adult life in the U.S., Babar was still familiar with the Pakistani farm economy, thanks to his family, which owns the country's largest processor of grains and seeds and also includes flour mills, animal feeds, poultry farms and edible oils (canola, corn and sunflower).

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While second generation biofuels are produced from non-edible feedstocks like wood chips or methane gas emitted from landfills, currently available biofuels are generated almost exclusively from corn.

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