Balancing Bioenergy Production and Nature Conservation in Germany: Potential Synergies and Challenges

The production of biomass for energy has emerged into a new, important market for agriculture in Germany. As climate protection remains the main objective for renewable energy production, the assessment and reduction of its environmental impacts are becoming increasingly important. This assessment requires the development and application of specific indicators to enable comparisons between different production methods. As long as primary crops remain the same as those being used for food production, the exact impacts of bioenergy production do not clearly differ from other agricultural production. A case-study carried out in Lower Saxony shows that additional impacts arise only when either new production methods are applied or new crops are being taken into production. In general, the production of biomass needs to be subject to the same standards that are being applied for food production or other commodities to ensure that biomass production does not serve as a scapegoat for all environmental problems associated with agriculture. Those standards should be defined by good farming practice or cross-compliance regulations. A consistent implementation and execution of existing standards would already result in major improvements, therefore pointing out another important priority for agricultural policy.