Biofuels and birds: perennial crops beat annuals

EnvironmentalResearchWeb.com
Oct 28, 2010

Proposed as a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels, biofuels have not yet proved themselves the easy solution that many were hoping for. There have been concerns about the net saving of carbon emissions that biofuels provide, rising food prices as agricultural land is converted to fuel growth and replacement of tropical forests with displaced food crops.

Now, researchers in the US have modelled how growth of crops for bioenergy – fuel, heat and electricity production – in the Upper Midwest is likely to affect bird populations. They believe that this is the first study to look at the biological impact of different strategies for growing bioenergy crops.

“Our results suggest that expanded reliance on first-generation bioenergy crops, such as corn and soybeans, will lead to meaningful decreases in the number of bird species (7 to 65%) across 20% of the region where there is currently a large amount of grassland and pasture on marginal farmland,” Tim Meehan of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Centre told environmentalresearchweb.

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