Energy crops

Growing crops specifically for energy production in a sustainable manner offers the potential for biomass to become a significant source of renewable energy, particularly in developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America. There are two main ways used to produce energy crops:

1) Energy plantations, in which an area is devoted exclusively to the production of such crops;

2) The simultaneous production of both energy and non-energy crops, which can occur either on adjacent pieces of land (termed 'farm forestry') or on the same piece of land (termed 'agro forestry').

Co-production of energy and non-energy crops has the benefit of providing farmers with revenue between harvests of energy crops, since they typically require several years of growth before the first harvest. Another important aspect to keep in mind is that the use of land specifically for bioenergy causes competition with other important land uses, particularly food production. Using the co-production approach could decrease this problem, but also helps to meet other environmental and socio-economic criteria for land use.

Eucalyptus plantation in Central Brazil		Poplar plantation in Eastern Croatia		Napier grass (aka elephant grass) is used for ethanol production - DOE/NREL		Willow plantation in Thames Valley, UK