The economics of growing shrub willow as a bioenergy buffer on agricultural fields: A case study in the Midwest Corn Belt

Abstract

Landscape design has been embraced as a promising approach to holistically balance multiple goals related to environmental and resource management processes to meet future provisioning and regulating ecosystem services needs. In the agricultural context, growing bioenergy crops in specifi c landscape positions instead of dedicated fi elds has the potential to improve their sustainability, provide ecosystem services, and minimize competition with other land uses. However, growing bioenergy crops in sub-productive or environmentally vulnerable parts of a fi eld implies more complex logistics as small amounts of biomass are generated in a distributed way across the landscape. We present a novel assessment of the differences in production and logistic costs between business as usual (BAU, dedicated fi elds), and distributed landscape production of shrub, or short-rotation willow for bioenergy within a US Midwestern landscape. Our fi ndings show that regardless of the mode of cropping, BAU or landscape design, growing shrub willows is unlikely to provide positive revenues (-$67 to -$303 ha -1 yr -1 at a biomass price of $46.30 Mg wet -1 ) because of high land rental costs in this agricultural region. However, when translated into a practice cost per unit of N removed at the watershed scale (range: $1.8-37.0 kg N -1 yr -1 ), the net costs are comparable to other conservation practices. The projected opportunity cost of growing willows instead of corn on underproductive areas varied between -$14 and $49 Mg wet -1 . This highlights the potential for willows to be a cost effective choice depending on the intra-fi eld grain productivity, biomass price and desirable concurrent ecosystem services.

Recognizing economic value in multifunctional buffers in the lower Mississippi river basin

“…Furthermore, the value proposition was based on possible farm‐gate feedstock prices but off‐farm factors (e.g., transportation costs and capacities of biorefineries) are also important factors to be considered . The actual costs of biomass from riparian buffers could also be higher than those from dedicated large biomass farms because the logistics of managing small amounts of biomass generated in a distributed way across the landscape are also more complex than production in contiguous large farms …”

“…When integrated with biomass production, the intercepted nutrients may be reused by energy crops, like switchgrass, to generate economic returns . In recent years, integrated landscape management strategies, such as using riparian buffers with perennial grasses or woody biomass crops have been gaining increased attention because they can take advantage of both the effectiveness of conservation practices in reducing nutrient loss and the economic potential of cellulosic biomass as bioenergy feedstock.…”

“…Although riparian buffers for biomass feedstock are of great interest, the literature on the economics of large‐scale implementation is limited . Ssegane et al . analyzed the costs and benefits of growing shrub willow as a bioenergy buffer in an agricultural watershed in central Illinois and found that a willow buffer has negative net returns if biomass is marketed at the price of $71.5/dry ton, largely because of the high land costs in the Corn Belt region.…”

Introducing perennial biomass crops into agricultural landscapes to address water quality challenges and provide other environmental services

“…Hence, mixed cropping may not produce enough biomass quantity in every case to become economically enticing. At the more granular scale, marginal areas are also unevenly distributed in otherwise productive fields, and farm‐level management related to establishment and harvesting operations could become logistically challenging, but potentially also economically favorable . Even with increased biomass production using an intensified production approach, farmers may still be reluctant to adopt the system due to perceived economic disadvantage of biomass over commodity crops including insufficient markets, lower profits, and lack of widely available management practices to ensure successful crop production.…”

Economic comparative advantage of willow biomass in the Northeast USA

“…Willow production may have competitive advantages on less‐productive lands and can be used in land remediation . As with other energy crops, the economic viability of willow production is subject to local operational costs, markets, and policies …”