Abstract
Echoing the bioenergy development initiative in Poland, high expectations are pinned on sweet sorghum usage for biogas plants. In contrast to its high profile in the industry, the research on the introduction and production of sorghum in Poland is lagging behind. To solve this issue, in this paper we have developed a spatial‐agent dynamic model of the agricultural land use and applied the model to eastern Poland. The model suggests that the economic and technical potential of sweet sorghum in this region is 6 and 7.5 million tonnes, respectively. Its introduction process largely follows the pattern of a typical industry life cycle, with the startup at the price of 8.20 €/tonne. Along with the market penetration of sorghum, a dramatic land use change of conventional crops can be foreseen, even with a land use competition among those crops. We believe that the exploitation of unutilized agricultural land resources and improving the yield of sorghum are helpful to alleviate this land use conflict. However, a higher food demand in the future and climate change may constrain the role of sorghum. This first comprehensive and high‐resolution study to its kind in Poland can help assess the country's bioenergy policies and contribute to the development of the biogas industry.
Highlights
Enhancing the share of renewable energy supply in its energy mix is one promise when Poland accessed to the EU in 2004
As the first comprehensive and high resolution study of its kind to focus on the sweet sorghum introduction in Poland to our knowledge, this model-driven research dynamically illustrates the introduction process, explores the impacts on land use change and assesses the technical and economic potential of sweet sorghum
We have developed a spatial agent dynamic model of agricultural land use for Poland
Summary
Enhancing the share of renewable energy supply in its energy mix is one promise when Poland accessed to the EU in 2004. Simon and Wiegmann (2009) developed an agricultural land use model to examine the biomass production in Germany and Eastern European Countries, where Poland is included It estimated the country's energy potential attained from crop residues and energy crops at 590 PJ/a under the “business as usual” scenario and 540 PJ/a in the sustainable scenario. What is more important is the study can serve as an opportunity of redesigning the supply chain of biomass feedstock in Poland as pointed out by Nilsson et al (2006) To fill in these gaps, we develop a spatial agent dynamic model of the agricultural land use in this paper. While facing the constraints of limited land resources, local climate conditions as well as the peculiar physical features of soils, farmers make decisions annually by adjusting their cultivation activities to simultaneously produce sufficient food and biomass sourced from conventional crop residues and sorghum. We discuss the features of the introduction process of sweet sorghum using the concept of industry life cycle and issues relevant to the model extension, followed by conclusions and the prospect for further research in the last section
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