Biorenewables push land use change

The National Non-Food Crops Centre (NNFCC) is to hold a seminar, ‘The impacts of land use change: myth or reality', on 28th January to discuss the controversial issue of land use change, brought into the spotlight by increasing demand for biorenewables.

The seminar, which will be held at The Royal College of Physicians in London, will also see the launch of the NNFCC's land use project to industry, Government and the media, with support from project consortia working in parallel areas.

The project, says NNFCC, generated some useful positive data based on changing agricultural land-use in the UK to grow annual or perennial energy crops.

The impact on soil organic carbon stocks was highly positive in scenarios where cultivation became less frequent. Furthermore, greenhouse gas impact modelling was seen to be positive when both arable and livestock land were converted to energy crops.

The seminar will highlight the outcomes of this project, ‘offering evidence that changing land use to energy crops can have positive effects', NNFCC believes. It will also look at other projects that studied impacts on biodiversity, water and soils in more depth.