The success of the bioenergy industry will depend, in part, on enough biomass feedstocks being grown. To increase the reliability of feedstocks supply, a government can offer two types of subsidy program: a farmer subsidy program (FSP) and a bioenergy producer subsidy program (PSP). We develop models to analyze the optimal subsidy program by capturing the interactions between the government, the bioenergy producer, and the farmers. The models incorporate the subsidy budget constraint, the environmental benefits from the use of bioenergy, the farmer's risk aversion and land capacity constraint, as well as the yield uncertainty of feedstocks. The findings reveal that both FSP and PSP are effective as long as the farmers' land capacity exceeds a threshold. If both the subsidy budget and the land capacity are sufficiently large, PSP outperforms FSP; if only the subsidy budget is limited, FSP is better; if only the land capacity is limited, FSP and PSP are equivalent. Counter-intuitively, we find that PSP always favors farmers more, while FSP favors the bioenergy producer more under certain conditions. Also, we find that FSP can better mitigate risk than PSP when yield uncertainty is high. Lastly, insights for policy makers to promote bioenergy development are highlighted.

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It is vital to concentrate on conserving the ecological environment and promoting production efficiency in the process of planting natural rubber. Agricultural social services (ASSs) play an essential role in helping rubber farmers to achieve green production. Based on the survey data of 552 natural rubber farmers in Hainan Province, this study builds an index system regarding socialized services for rubber production from three factors: technology extension services, financial insurance services, and market information services. This research uses the slack-based measure (SBM) model and the Tobit model to analyze the green production efficiency (GPE) and the influences of rubber production socialized services on the rubber growers’ green production efficiency. Our results revealed that (1) the average green productivity of rubber planting in Hainan is approximately 0.41, which means that there is ample space for improvement; (2) ASSs have a significant positive effect on increasing the green rubber production efficiency; and (3) among ASSs, the technical extension service has the most significant effect on improving the green production efficiency of the growers. To further raise GPE of natural rubber, the socialized service system can be strengthened in terms of technology, capital, and information. ASSs have noticeable potential in improving the efficiency of rubber green production while ensuring economic, social, and ecological sustainability.

China's biofuel industry faces the problem of insufficient supply of biomass feedstock because farmers lack the funds to carry out their planting plans. Moreover, natural disasters can easily expose farmers to bankruptcy risks, making it difficult for farmers with limited capital to obtain financing from banks. This paper studies the government's subsidy programmes for helping farmers obtain financing: a poverty alleviation programme (PAP) and a social welfare programme (SWP). We construct a biofuel supply chain model including the government, the bank, farmers, and companies, which optimizes the biomass feedstock production and the government subsidy in different subsidy programmes. We find that high planting efficiency leads to a lower subsidy interest rate for farmers in PAP, while in SWP, high planting efficiency can promote the government to set higher subsidy interest rate when the competitive intensity between bioenergy companies is weak. Furthermore, the total biomass feedstock planting area and the optimal subsidy interest rate in SWP are larger (smaller) than those under PAP when the planting efficiency is higher (lower) than a certain threshold. An extension of our model shows that the government's subsidy policy for the farmer with financial constraints will reduce the benefits of the farmer who does not need to borrow from the bank. The government's failure to implement subsidy programmes can sometimes lead to a higher total income for farmers. INDEX TERMS Supply chain finance, biofuel supply chain, yield uncertainty, government subsidy.

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