Biofuels and ecoagriculture: can bioenergy production enhance landscape-scale ecosystem conservation and rural livelihoods? (original) (raw)
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2015
Large scale cultivation of bioenergy crops can substantially alter the appearance and the ecology of rural and agricultural landscapes, which constitute a valuable asset of our cultural heritage. The ecosystems and the built heritage of agricultural landscapes require holistic management structures built on self-sustaining ecological cycles and the sustainable use of ecosystem services put into the context of economical and demographical conditions of local and regional development strategies. Furthermore, the natural and cultural heritage of rural landscapes can play an important role for boosting economic growth and social cohesion if protected and used with a long term sustainability approach. This is particularly important for those rural landscapes, where establishing large scale traditional monoculture of bio energy crops might threaten both previously well functioning agro-ecosystems and the cultural values of the agricultural landscapes. However, sensible cultivation of ener...
International Journal of Forest Engineering, 2012
The development of bioenergy offers major possibilities for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel dependency, but negative impacts can also occur-e.g., the outcome for food production and biodiversity can be negative. This is a dilemma for policy: how to promote bioenergy developments that can substantially reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and fossil fuel use without jeopardizing other policy objectives. One major activity within IEA Bioenergy Task 30 and its successor Task 43 concerns strategies to integrate expanding bioenergy systems with the existing land use, in order to reduce land use competition and displacement risks, and with the aim of improving land use productivity and reducing negative environmental impacts of the existing land use. This paper presents the outcome of an activity within this topic area: an evaluation tool that is being developed for comparing alternative ways of producing biofuel feedstocks-here applied on selected approaches that combine fuel production with other objectives. The tool, described as a generalized integrative assessment tool, has been used to evaluate several alternative bioenergy development options: (i) an alternative sugarcane expansion scenario for the Cerrado areas in Brazil, (ii) the use of crop or industrial residues for biogas production in the Netherlands, and (iii) an accelerated agricultural growth scenario generating additional food and biofuel feedstocks while conserving biodiversity areas in Ukraine. The results suggest that the tool can be useful for presenting and evaluating multidimensional effects of bioenergy expansion-by listing, analyzing and depicting all dimensions in a clear and comprehensive way. The evaluations of the three cases show that if biofuel feedstock production systems are developed in ways that do not lead to displacement of the prevailing land use, impacts on local food production capacity and biodiversity can be avoided, or at least significantly reduced, compared to a scenario of bioenergy expansion crowding out other land uses. Integrated bioenergy food systems can offer opportunities for both economic and social development.
An Integrated Landscape Management Approach to Sustainable Bioenergy Production
BioEnergy Research, 2017
Integrated landscape management has emerged in recent years as a methodology to integrate the environmental impacts of various agricultural practices along with yield and profitability in a variety of cropping systems. In this study, the Landscape Environmental Assessment Framework (LEAF), a decision support toolset for use in integrated landscape management and developed at Idaho National Laboratory, was used to evaluate the profitability of grain producing subfields, to determine the efficacy of sustainably harvesting residual biomass after grain harvest, and to determine the efficacy of integrating bioenergy crops into grain-producing landscapes to enhance farmer profitability. Three bioenergy crops, sorghum, switchgrass, and miscanthus, were integrated into non-profitable subfields in four U.S. counties. The manuscript describes in detail the material and methods used to define crop rotations, land management units and practices, subfield units and productivity, grain profitability, sustainability criteria, energy crop integration, and feedstock cost estimation. With the integration of bioenergy crops, the overall annual biomass production rates in the four counties could be increased by factors ranging from 0.8 to 21, depending on the energy crop and county, over the annual residue biomass production rates. By modeling the harvesting of residual biomass and energy crops using geo-referenced, precision harvesting equipment and optimal harvesting paths on individual sub-fields, the average logistics costs including harvesting of both residual biomass and energy crops were observed to fall well below US DOE's 2017 goals for biomass feedstock price of US$84/ton or US$92.6/dry Mg. Miscanthus, grown in counties in Ohio and Kansas, provided the maximum potential, among the three energy crops considered, for increment in biomass production and also posed maximum threat to the grain production. Considerable variability was observed in the harvesting and total costs because of the size, shape, and productivity of individual subfields. It was shown that variability in the harvesting costs could be used to down-select non-profitable farms with low harvesting costs and high residue and bioenergy crop yields and to reduce the negative impacts of bioenergy crop integration into croplands on grain production. The results of the assessment suggest that (1) the potential to produce biomass is considerably enhanced when non-profitable grain-producing subfields are replaced by bioenergy crops, (2) the subfield-scale integrated landscape assessment provides a defensible methodology to directly address individual farmer's profitability, sustainability, and environmental stewardship.
Prospects of Bioenergy Cropping Systems for A More Social-Ecologically Sound Bioeconomy
Agronomy, 2019
The growing bioeconomy will require a greater supply of biomass in the future for both bioenergy and bio-based products. Today, many bioenergy cropping systems (BCS) are suboptimal due to either social-ecological threats or technical limitations. In addition, the competition for land between bioenergy-crop cultivation, food-crop cultivation, and biodiversity conservation is expected to increase as a result of both continuous world population growth and expected severe climate change effects. This study investigates how BCS can become more social-ecologically sustainable in future. It brings together expert opinions from the fields of agronomy, economics, meteorology, and geography. Potential solutions to the following five main requirements for a more holistically sustainable supply of biomass are summarized: (i) bioenergy-crop cultivation should provide a beneficial social-ecological contribution, such as an increase in both biodiversity and landscape aesthetics, (ii) bioenergy crops should be cultivated on marginal agricultural land so as not to compete with food-crop production, (iii) BCS need to be resilient in the face of projected severe climate change effects, (iv) BCS should foster rural development and support the vast number of small-scale family farmers, managing about 80% of agricultural land and natural resources globally, and (v) bioenergy-crop cultivation must be planned and implemented systematically, using holistic approaches. Further research activities and policy incentives should not only consider the economic potential of bioenergy-crop cultivation, but also aspects of biodiversity, soil fertility, and climate change adaptation specific to site conditions and the given social context. This will help to adapt existing agricultural systems in a changing world and foster the development of a more social-ecologically sustainable bioeconomy.
The development of bioenergy offers major possibilities for the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and fossil fuel dependency, but possible negative impacts for food production, biodiversity etc can also occur. This is a dilemma for policy: how to promote bioenergy developments that can substantially reduce GHG emissions and fossil fuel use without jeopardizing other policy objectives. One major activity within Task 30 concerns strategies to integrate expanding bioenergy systems with the existing land use, in order to reduce land use competition and displacement risks, and with the aim to improve overall productivity in land use. This paper presents the outcome of an activity within this Topic Area; an evaluation tool that is being developed for comparing alternative ways of producing biofuel feedstocks -here applied on select approaches that combine fuel production with other objectives. The tool is briefly described and the results of its use to evaluate three bioenergy options is presented: (i) an alternative sugar cane expansion scenario for the Cerrado areas in Brazil; (ii) the use of crop residues for biogas production in the Netherlands; and (iii) an accelerated agricultural growth scenario generating additional food and biofuel feedstocks while conserving biodiversity areas in the Ukraine.
Agroforestry as nexus of sustainable development goals
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science
Agroforestry, as platform for harmonizing agriculture and forestry in their interactions with landscapes and rural and peri(urban) livelihoods, offers opportunities to benefit from synergies across sustainable development goals (SDGs), and deal with the unavoidable tradeoffs. Such synergy, however, may only emerge if site-specific analysis of the multiple functions of landscapes leads to a shared understanding among stakeholders, clear commitment to common goals, effective means of implementation and a system that remains open to innovation by monitoring functions rather than form, and regularly re-evaluates effectiveness of policy instruments.
A landscape perspective on sustainability of agricultural systems
Landscape Ecology, 2013
Agricultural sustainability considers the effects of farm activities on social, economic, and environmental conditions at local and regional scales. Adoption of more sustainable agricultural practices entails defining sustainability, developing easily measured indicators of sustainability, moving toward integrated agricultural systems, and offering incentives or imposing regulations to affect farmer behavior. Landscape ecology is an informative discipline in considering sustainability because it provides theory and methods for dealing with spatial heterogeneity, scaling, integration, and complexity. To move toward more sustainable agriculture, we propose adopting a systems perspective, recognizing spatial heterogeneity, integrating landscapedesign principles and addressing the influences of context, such as the particular products and their distribution, policy background, stakeholder values, location, temporal influences, spatial scale, and baseline conditions. Topics that need further attention at local and regional scales include (1) protocols for quantifying material and energy flows; (2) standard specifications for management practices and corresponding effects; (3) incentives and disincentives for enhancing economic, environmental, and social conditions (including financial, regulatory and other behavioral motivations); (4) integrated landscape planning and management; (5) monitoring and assessment; (6) effects of societal demand; and (7) integrative policies for promoting agricultural sustainability.