Introducing Miscanthus to the greening measures of the EU Common Agricultural Policy

Abstract

The EU Common Agricultural Policy regulations for the 2014-2020 period comprise three 'greening measures' aimed at climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation. These three greening measures consist of the maintenance of permanent pastures, crop diversification and ecological focus areas (EFAs). Farmers are to assign 5% of their land as EFAs; this concerns for example grassland, hedges, buffer strips or nitrogen-fixing crops. Short rotation coppice (SRC) as a perennial bioenergy crop is also considered as an eligible EFA within the EU greening measures, whereas Miscanthus is not. However, a quantitative comparison (t-test) of SRC and Miscanthus revealed that both crops are similar in the delivery of a variety of ecosystem services, such as C storage and biodiversity. Moreover, Miscanthus may contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions due to a considerable CO 2 mitigation potential. Due to the overall consensus of the ecological significance of Miscanthus in agro-ecosystems with the greening measures within the EU CAP reform, we recommend acknowledging Miscanthus as an eligible EFA with a similar payment as for SRC, boundary ridges or buffer strips. Along with Miscanthus, a number of other perennial renewables also may contribute to what the CAP intends. We predict that introducing Miscanthus and even other perennial energy crops could also make European agriculture more innovative and effective.

Marginal Agricultural Land Low-Input Systems for Biomass Production

“…Thus, the identification of a best-adapted industrial crop is the first step in developing a site-specifically suitable MALLIS. In this case, perennial crops, such as miscanthus and switchgrass are found to be suitable because (i) they do not require soil tillage and sowing each year compared to annual crops which helps both increasing soil fertility [113,114] and reducing erosion [115] in the long term, (ii) they can manage to root deep enough despite shallow soil, because their root systems are stronger and more developed than those of annual crops, and (iii) the climatic conditions meet the crop-specific growth requirements. In this case, the perennial C4-grass miscanthus (Miscanthus × giganteus Greef et Deuter) was chosen ( Figure 5), due to its low demanding nature and high biomass yield potential under challenging conditions [116].…”

Comparing chemical composition and lignin structure of Miscanthus x giganteus and Miscanthus nagara harvested in autumn and spring and separated into stems and leaves

“…[7][8][9][10] Like other perennial bioenergy crops such as short rotation coppice, Miscanthus was recently considered as an eligible ecological focus area within the European agricultural policy. 11 Potential applications of Miscanthus plants include renewable energy as well as the production of fuel and chemicals. [12][13][14] Recent studies include the investigation of cascade utilization of Miscanthus crops analogous to procedures reported for fruits.…”

Improving the Ecological Performance of Miscanthus (Miscanthus × giganteus Greef et Deuter) through Intercropping with Woad (Isatis tinctoria L.) and Yellow Melilot (Melilotus officinalis L.)

“…Pollinator populations have been rapidly decreasing for decades [5,6] and this require as much support as possible from agricultural systems [3, [61][62][63]. In January 2018, both cup plant and miscanthus were approved as greening measures, but since then, a rapid expansion in cultivation area in Germany has only been observed for cup plant [64,65]. Miscanthus has the advantage that it can be used for a number of conversion pathways such as combustions, biogas production, and bedding material [31,66], whereas cup plant can so far only be used for biogas production [54,59].…”