Socio-economic opportunities from Miscanthus cultivation in marginal land for bioenergy
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Published version
Author(s)
Panoutsou, Calliope
Chiaramonti, David
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Substantial areas of agricultural land in south European countries are becoming increasingly marginal and being abandoned due to arid climate with prolonged summers and low rainfall. Perennial, lignocellulosic crops, such as Miscanthus, offer an outlet that couples agriculture with energy, creates employment, and increases profits from feedstock production in rural areas. This research paper follows an Input Output methodology and uses an econometric model to investigate the impact of crop yielding performance and marginal land to jobs and profit from the cultivation and supply of Miscanthus in low quality, marginal land in Italy and Greece. Two value chain cases are analysed: small scale Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and Fast Pyrolysis Bio Oil (FPBO). The cultivation of Miscanthus in both reference value chains exhibits good employment prospects, with smaller scale value chains creating more labour-intensive logistics operations. The activities can also generate substantial financial profit especially with higher crop yields. Results show a pronounced relationship between profitability and crop yield for both reference value chains - cultivation and supply operations become more profitable with increasing yield. It is, therefore, important to achieve higher yields through good cropping practices, while maintaining high levels of environmental sustainability.
Date Issued
2020-06-01
Date Acceptance
2020-05-25
Citation
Energies, 2020, 13 (11)
ISSN
1996-1073
Publisher
MDPI AG
Journal / Book Title
Energies
Volume
13
Issue
11
Copyright Statement
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Sponsor
Commission of the European Communities
Commission of the European Communities
Grant Number
IEE/12/835/S12.645920
608622
Subjects
02 Physical Sciences
09 Engineering
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 2741
Date Publish Online
2020-06-29