Decision-making tools to support the development of bioenergy in agriculture

Sustainable agriculture leads today to important questions about the diversification of agricultural production and sources of income for farmers, the use of rural and arable land for food and non-food crops, the contribution of agriculture to climate change fighting and the supply of renewable energy. Bioenergy from agriculture is at the heart of these concerns, integrating sustainable development key components: environment and climate change, energy economics and energy supply, agriculture, rural and social development. The lack of primary and reliable data on bioenergy externalities from agriculture and the lack of decision-making tools are important non-technological barriers to the development of bioenergy from agriculture on a large scale, and, consequently, to the achievement of the national and regional objectives of sustainable development with respect to greenhouse gas mitigation, secure and diversified energy supply, rural development and employment and the future of agriculture. Furthermore, the recent worldwide controversies about transport biofuels, food shortages and increasing prices have demonstrated the urgent need for sustainability criteria applied to biofuels and bioenergy. Within this current sustainable development framework, a project entitled TEXBIAG integrating experts from 4 research institutions is financed by the Belgian Science Policy. The final objective of this project is to lead to an actual and significant contribution of bioenergy from agriculture to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, to a secure and diversified energy supply and to farmers' incomes and rural development. To reach this final objective, the project develops three specific tools: (1) a database of primary quantitative data related to environmental and socio-economic impacts of bioenergy from agriculture integrating biomass logistics; (2) a mathematical model monetizing bioenergy externalities from agriculture; and (3) a prediction tool assessing the impacts of political decisions made in the framework of the development of bioenergy from agriculture on different economic sectors (energy, agriculture, industry, and environment). An integrated interface tool will be programmed where access to and update of the three tools will be prepared. The project methodology will be conducted for a given number of scenarios with sensitivity analysis wherever possible. The three main target groups that will benefit from the project are: the government officials and policy makers in the field of agriculture, energy and environment in Belgium and its two main regions, the small, medium and large energy companies and the agricultural sector