Amid population expansion and severe climate conditions threatening agricultural productivity, sustainable food production is a national priority. Simultaneously, advances in bioenergy agriculture are necessary to move our energy sector away from fossil fuels.
Land enrolled in the CRP cannot currently be used for bioenergy crop production, wherein high-yielding plants (like miscanthus and switchgrass) are harvested for conversion into marketable bioproducts that displace fossil fuel- and coal-based energy. Established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1985, the CRP incentivizes landowners to retire environmentally degraded cropland, exchanging agricultural productivity for native habitats and accepting annual government payments in return.
As the world warms and its population explosively expands, global demand for food production is at odds with the decreased agricultural productivity threatened by extreme climate conditions. Therefore, allocating CRP land for high-yielding energy biomass might eliminate the need for bioenergy crops and food crops to vie for space.
A team led by CABBI Sustainability Theme Leader Madhu Khanna and Ph.D. student Luoye Chen developed an integrated modeling approach to assess the viability of transitioning CRP land in the eastern U.S. to perennial bioenergy crops. Their paper, published in Environmental Science & Technology in January 2021, confirmed that the land-use transition is indeed viable provided that certain key conditions are met.
«As proponents of a safer, more sustainable bioeconomy, we must prioritize displacing fossil fuels,» said Khanna, who is also Acting Director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. «As scientists, it is our responsibility to take a thoughtful, innovative approach to mitigating greenhouse gases in a way that will prove beneficial in the long term.
«The transportation and electricity sectors are looking to expand bioenergy production, and it is imperative that the agricultural sector do the same. This necessitates a program wherein bioenergy cropland and food cropland coexist rather than compete.»
The CABBI team takes an integrated approach to weighing the costs and benefits of swapping the CRP status quo — uncultivated acreage — for bioenergy, combining the Biofuel and Environmental Policy Analysis Model (BEPAM) with the biogeochemical model DayCent (Daily Time Step Version of the Century Model).
Story Source: Materials provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment. Original written by Jenna Kurtzweil. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.