It's difficult to reflect on the farm of the future without including a role for energy crops. Recent policy shifts toward renewable energy are opening up new opportunities for farmers to diversify their crops and bring idle land back into production. As a result, farm practices will have an enormous impact on the economic viability and commercial development of next-generation bioenergy. The development of new bioenergy feedstocks, whether dedicated crops or harvest residues, requires a concomitant development of production networks and market demand. In the bioenergy sector, two main organizational structures link the biomass supply to the energy producer: vertical integration (which occurs when the bioenergy producer supplies the feedstock in-house) and procurement systems (in which feedstocks are supplied from biomass producers to bioenergy producers by means of spot markets or contracts). The relative balance of these two strategies reflects their technical difficulties, perceived risks, and marginal economies.
展开▼
