Introduction and context: global biomass resources - Biomass as Energy Source: Resources, Systems and Applications - page 8

Corn/maize is one of the crops that has been genetically modified and then planted the most.
In the US and Canada actually 85% of the maize produced in 2009 was genetically modified.
Cassava is the third largest carbohydrate source for humans with 136 million tonnes 1985.
More than 1/3 is grown in Africa, where it is very important as food crop. It is good as feedstock
to ethanol production as well.
1.2.5 Barley, rye and oats
There are some other cereals of importance especially in the northern countries. Russia produces
15.5 million tonne barley per year, Canada 12.2, Ukraine 8.0, Turkey 7.0, Australia 7.0 and USA
6.0 million tonnes per year in 2009. Russia also produced 5 tonnes rye and 6.0 tonnes oats while
Poland produced 3.2 million tonnes rye, Canada 3.7 million tonnes oats and the US 2.1 million
tonnes oats in 2009.
1.2.6 Oil crops
18.1million tonnes rapeseedwas produced inEU27 2007. Most of it was produced in the temperate
countries north of the Alps. In the southern countries, olive oil is more common.
The global rape seed oil production was 47 million tonnes in 2006. Major producers were
China with 12.2, Canada with 9.1, India 6.0, Germany 5.3, France 4.1, UK 1.9 and Poland with
1.6 million tonnes. (http://www.soyatech.com/rapeseed_facts.htm).
Today, the world's top producers of soy are the United States, Brazil, Argentina, China and
India. About 85% of the world's soybeans are processed, or “crushed,” annually into soybean meal
and oil. Approximately 9% of the soybean meal that is crushed is further processed into animal
feed with the balance used to make soy flour and proteins. Of the oil fraction, 95% is consumed
as edible oil; the rest is used for industrial products such as fatty acids, soaps and biodiesel. Soy is
one of the few plants that provide a complete protein as it contains all eight amino acids essential
for human health. World soybean production has increased by over 500% in the last 40 years.
In 2007/08 the production of different vegetable oils was: palm oil 41.3 million tonnes, soybean
oil 41.3, rapeseed 18.2, sunflower 9.9, peanut 4.8, cottonneseed 5.0, palm kernel 4.9, coconut 3.5
and olive oil 2.8 million tonnes (Oilseeds, 2009).
1.2.7 Sugar cane
Sugar cane is an important crop for production of sugar, but also for ethanol in countries such
as Brazil. Sugarcane is the world's largest crop in 2010 with respect to production. FAO (Crop
production, 2010a) estimates about 23.8 million hectares were cultivated with sugar cane in more
than 90 countries, with a worldwide harvest of 1.69 billion tonnes. Brazil was the largest producer
of sugar cane in the world. The next five major producers, in decreasing amounts of production,
were India, China, Thailand, Pakistan and Mexico.
The world demand for sugar is the primary driver of sugarcane agriculture. Cane accounts for
80% of sugar produced; most of the rest is produced from sugar beets.
1.3 ENERGY CROPS
There are principally three different types of pathways for the photosynthesis. The most common
is called the C3 system. This is most common in colder and temperate climates, and produces
3-carbon organic acid (3-phosphoglyceric acid). The second main system is more common in
warm climates. It is called the C4 system, as the first product is 4-carbon organic acids (malate
and aspartate). The C4 system also utilizes much more CO 2 : 70-100mg CO 2 /dm 2 /h with light
saturation around 4.2-5.9 J/cm 2 /min (total radiation of visible light). For C3 plants, the corre-
sponding value is 15-30mg CO 2 /dm 2 /h with light saturation already at 0.8-2.4 J/cm 2 /min. This