There is a new trend that can be seen right near Lake Charles as well that deals with biofuels. People are planting eucalyptus tree plantations
The trees grow at an incredibly fast rate, something like 100 feet tall in ten years. The word is that these things will not be invasive and be able to get into the landscape, but we will have to see. Hopefull the new eucalyptus plantations will just be replanted where pine plantations formally were. Maybe we can import koalas over with them as well
The world has several billion people now and they all have to eat, so expanding the farmland is inevitable, BUT we have more oil and gas under us than we no what to do with and there is no reason to be growing 'fuel' when that land could be used for other things.
Also, there are already huge chunks of grasslands being purchased in Africa by investors. They wil be converting that into farmland as well. Imagine how cheap that labor will be over there.