Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
relocalized rural economy with more emphasis on biofuel crops and greatly reduced num-
bers of livestock. According to the report's main author, Peter Harper, this was a first stab
at constructing a model, and contains some inconsistencies, but I believe it begins to paint a
picture of what a fairly localized biofuel economy might look like. I have taken the liberty
of transcribing it into the same matrix as the other scenarios, after making some minor ad-
aptions.
6
CAT's rural economy is based around a 12 course rotation, in which (typically) the land
would be under green manure during three years, and sown to
Miscanthus
for bioenergy
over another three years, with grain, rape for biofuel and root crops taken over the other six
years. The authors warn:
There is much justified anxiety about biofuels. Sometimes presented as a means of
maintaining post peak oil mobility, a few simple calculations show that biofuels come
nowhere near to providing the World's (or even Britain's) current transport demands.
A key reason why they are not a panacea is that under typical field or forest conditions,
photosynthesis is simply not very efficient. For a given area, windmills produce 20
times more energy, photovoltaic panels 100 times more … Despite these drawbacks
this strategy recognizes that bio-energy can play a useful role in a sustainable energy
strategy.
The requirement for biofuel bumps the arable area up to ten million hectares, signific-
antly more than in any of the other projections. In total there are six million hectares of
woodland (the same amount as in Tables F and G) and 4.3 million hectares are devoted to
bio-energy, of which 3.3 million are arable and one million short rotation coppice (SRC).
In total this is about two thirds of the entire area given over to non-edible biomass. This
is achieved at the expense of two things: first there is very little meat and dairy, scarcely
a fifth of the amount provided in Table F; secondly there are are only 5.2 million hectares
of permanent grass and wildland, compared to 8.3 million in the Livestock Permaculture
model, and 8.4 million hectares of spare land in the Vegan Permaculture model.
Ecologists would have something to say about the loss of biodiversity, and it is also pos-
sible that conversion of grassland to arable would result in a loss of soil carbon that would
negate some of the advantage of planting biofuels.
The diet in Table H provides about 10 per cent more calories than the other models.
However there is very little fat in the diet, and I suspect that much of the rape oil would be
eaten rather than used for biofuel.
The CAT model provides a picture of how regimented and lacking in biodiversity an ag-
ricultural economy reliant on bio-energy might be. Every summer a quarter of the arable
land - ten per cent of the entire country - would be a curtain of eight foot high
Miscan-
thus
grass. Given that wind turbines are more efficient in respect of land, and are reliant on
