Addressing Land Use Change

When increased demand for biorenewables brought land use change into the spotlight, the NNFCC was on hand to address the challenges facing the industry.

In 2008, the NNFCC launched a new land use project. This helped cut through the myths and provided clear evidence on the likely implications of changing agricultural land in the UK to energy crop production.

The project found that energy crops could have a highly positive impact on the amount of organic carbon stored in the soil, particularly when cultivation is less frequent.

In addition, when both arable and livestock land were converted to energy crops, greenhouse gas emissions were found to be significantly reduced.

We also ran a land use change conference in 2010, which was open to the research community, industry, Government and the media. The event highlighted the positive impacts that changing land use to energy crops could bring to biodiversity, water and soils.

The NNFCC continue to be active in this area, addressing new challenges facing land use change as they develop.