Abstract
The bioeconomy is the cornerstone of the EU’s policy for shifting economic and societal trends towards circularity and low carbon arrangements. Europe has several crops that can be used as raw materials for this purpose, however pressure on land which might displace other activities and industrial competition for cost efficient raw materials remains a challenge. Hence, ensuring good yielding capacity and examining the likelihood to produce more by exploiting low quality, unused land can present significant opportunities to increase sustainable, locally sourced supply and at the same time offer profitable solutions to both industry and the farmers. This paper estimates the production costs of fourteen crops (oil, sugar, starch and lignocellulosic) and analyses how their profitability can be influenced by yield increases and cultivation in low quality land. Results show that there are profitable options for all crops under current market prices and land types except for cases in countries where crop productivity is rather low to sustain farm incomes. The analysis confirms that Europe has plenty crop options as raw materials for bioeconomy. Decision makers however must ensure future research and policy support are oriented towards sustainable yield increases and accelerate rehabilitation of land that is unused and of low quality.
Highlights
Europe has diverse domestic crop potential to supply the bio-based economy [1,2,3,4]
This paper evaluates the profitability of fourteen crops from the oil, sugar, starch and lignocellulosic groups under current practices and further analyses how yield increases and cultivation in low quality land could influence their economic performance
The analysis provides an estimate of the return to capital invested and to the farmer’s labour, and this may be compared with the return to alternative cropping patterns or to off-farm opportunities [37]
Summary
Europe has diverse domestic crop potential to supply the bio-based economy [1,2,3,4]. This paper evaluates the profitability of fourteen crops from the oil, sugar, starch and lignocellulosic groups under current practices and further analyses how yield increases and cultivation in low quality land could influence their economic performance. The second section presents the results for: (i) production costs at farm gate, disaggregated by Member State in EU, for two land types: average farming and low quality; (ii) profitability in these land types at current yields and market prices (using CAPRI model as baseline), [1,2] and (iii) possibilities for future improvements by either increasing crop yields or producing more feedstock in unused, low-quality land, using sustainable practices (as described in the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/807 of 13 March 2019 [11] supplementing Directive (EU). The work can provide quantified evidence on the production costs and opportunities to improve profitability performance of European crops as raw materials for the biobased economy Such information can be used by research, industry and policy makers to inform decisions for the national. The cultivation of crops in low quality land remains case specific and requires detailed analysis since there are variations in the types and conditions which affect land marginality [12]
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