SUSTAINABLE ENERGY IN AGRICULTURE: ISSUES AND SCOPE - Economics of Sustainable Energy in Agriculture - page 5

own farm data better and if they are capable of incorporating this
information into their fertilisation strategy. In Chapter 3, Moerschner and
Lücke provide an analysis of energy use, energy intensity and energy
productivity of farms with different intensive oil seed rape rotations in
Lower Saxony. They find that crop rotations are a critical factor in energy
intensity and productivity. Also, they find that a site-specific reduction in
farming intensity has ecological advantages and opens interesting
potentials for saving (fossil) energy resources. In Chapter 4, Pietola and
Oude Lansink introduce a dynamic aspect of energy use by modelling
investments in energy saving technologies on Dutch glasshouse firms using
simulated maximum likelihood. Their results show that the probability to
invest in energy saving technologies increases with firm size, energy price
and the stock of capital invested in installations; the stock of capital
invested in structures ( e.g. glasshouses) decreases the probability to invest
in energy saving technologies. Joaquin Millan concludes part I with
Chapter 5 on an energy intensity decomposition for EU agriculture. The
decomposition of input intensities in this study shows that, in general, prices
have a very limited contribution to changes in energy intensity, and even less
in energy-based input intensity, relative to quasi-fixed inputs and technical
change. Another conclusion from this study is that the evolution of energy
demand and energy-based intensities in EU agriculture is country specific,
thereby limiting the scope for general EU-wide agri-environmental
policies.
The second section of this topic focuses on technical issues related
to biomass production. In Chapter 6 , Sanderine Nonhebel assesses the
resource use efficiency of different biomass production systems in the
Netherlands and Portugal. The results in her study show that low-input
systems are only efficient with respect to their use of fossil energy and that
their efficiency is very poor regarding the use of other inputs. Furthermore,
this study shows that the net energy yield (harvested energy - fossil energy
required for the production) is much higher in the high-input systems. In
Chapter

, Leo Vleeshouwers makes predictions of future yield increases
of two biomass energy crops, i.e. Salix viminalis and Miscanthus
giganteus. In the next 20 years, due to improved breeding and crop
management, stem growth may increase by 1.2 % annually to 12.0 t d.m.
in S. viminalis, and by 1.41 % annually to 13.0 t d.m. in M.
giganteus. The estimates found in this study are lower than earlier
findings in the literature.
The third section of this topic discusses various aspects of the
relation between land use and biomass production. Jungk, Reinhardt and
Gärtner focus in Chapter 8 on the role of agricultural reference systems in
life cycle assessments. The reference system defines the alternative use of

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