Bioenergy from agroforestry can lead to improved food security, climate change, soil quality, and rural development

Abstract

Well-designed bioenergy systems can contribute to several objectives, such as mitigating climate change, increasing energy access, and alleviating rural poverty. With adequate technical assistance and land management, farm yields and income can be increased, food security strengthened, carbon sequestration improved, and pressure for land clearing reduced. There are, nonetheless, risks involved on bioenergy production and several initiatives worldwide have failed to achieve proposed positive outcomes. Overreliance on monoculture plantations, negative land-use change impacts, and use of cereal crops as feedstocks are among the main causes. Agroforestry systems and practices can address most of these risks and thus play an important role in sustainable production of several bioenergy outputs, including efficient solid biomass, biogas, liquid biofuels, and dendro power. This article assesses the potential of such integrated approaches to provide multiple benefits, including the coproduction of food, animal feed, and organic fertilizers, while respecting economic, social, and environmental sustainability indicators. Building on experiences from sub-Saharan Africa, developing Asia, and Latin America, promising perennial species, production models, and value chains are analyzed. Finally, key challenges and potential solutions for larger scale adoption of integrated food-energy approaches are also identified and discussed. 166

A framework for profitability evaluation of agroforestry‐based biofuel value chains: An application to pongamia in India

“…For this reason, the substantial income gains that are predicted for the same BP by Bohra et al () are clearly exaggerated. Second, there appears to be most potential for decentralized processing and local value addition schemes, which is in line with recommendations from Achten, Maes et al (), Lokesh et al (), Muys et al () and Sharma et al (). Decentralization at village level entails more employment opportunities and allows farmers to use processed products themselves, such as seed cake against nutrient loss.…”

“…Low financial feasibility of jatropha monocultures has shifted attention towards biofuel production from native oilseed trees in small‐scale agroforestry set‐ups (Achten, Akinnifesi et al, ; Fritsche et al, ; von Maltitz, Gasparatos, & Fabricius, ). These agroforestry‐based systems involve planting of oilseed trees on field edges, in homegardens, and on fallow and communal land, thereby aiming at decreasing opportunity costs, increasing overall farm productivity and improving ecosystem services provisioning (Jose, ; Malézieux et al, ; Sharma et al, ). Moreover, native trees usually have traditional value chains, which improves by‐product valorization, local farmers are often familiar with their agronomy, and they can be considered noninvasive (Edrisi et al, ; Gowda, Prasanna, Vijaya Kumar, Haleshi, & Rajesh Kumar, ).…”

Building Energy Opportunity with a Supply Chain Based on the Local Fuel-Producing Capacity

“…plant was designed using the most efficient technologies with the objective of reducing pollutants and complying with the most restrictive requirements imposed by the current legislation. Lastly, previous works habitually focused on monothematic subjects, e.g., studying bioenergy plants in terms of engineering or energy performance without weighing their socio-economic and environmental impacts [2,[6][7][8]24,[27][28][29]. Therefore, the present paper primarily deals with three tasks with the aim of: (i) assessing the biomass potential from a sustainable perspective; (ii) providing an economic accounting of an exemplary biomass plant in terms of its technical characteristics and performance; and (iii) evaluating social and environmental impacts.…”

“…By supporting sustainable development, energy needs can be met through the conversion of agroforestry biomass into biofuels [5][6][7][8][9][10]. Therefore, a requirement for establishing sustainable production and consumption chains at the local level emerges [11,12].…”

“…The production of biomass for the energy industry is associated with specific silviculture [2,7,25,26], which is very often linked to artificial reforestation rather than to the development of natural forests [12]. In recent years, many studies have focused on bioenergy plants [2,[6][7][8]24,[27][28][29]. However, very often, only various aspects are considered, e.g., with engineering or energy performance nature, without understanding the impact that a bioenergy plant can generate in the surrounding area.…”