Study titled ‘Balancing bioenergy expansion and restoration: Global shifts in biodiversity intactness’ emphasised that prioritising degraded or abandoned agricultural land for energy crops offers greater benefit.

About Bioenergy Crops

• Refer to plants specifically grown for the purpose of producing biomass that can be converted into energy. It includes energy grasses, oilseeds, and lignocellulosic crops.
• Classified into three development stages:
  • First Generation: Energy conversion technologies exist like sugar crops, starch, and oil crops, etc.  
  • Second Generation: Energy Conversion technologies are under development.  Involves switching from food to non-food lignocelluloses like polysaccharides cellulose, etc. 
  • Third Generation: Involves future technologies such as genetically modified crops, etc.
• Challenges in Bioenergy crop production: Land use conflicts, food security (conversion of agricultural land for bioenergy), transporting wet biomass from the plantation to the production site becomes energetically unfavorable and costly, etc.

Key findings of the Study

• The study used biodiversity data to calculate Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) in different land-use. 
  • BII compares the average abundance of native terrestrial species in a region with their abundances before pronounced human impacts. 
• Planting energy crops in places with high natural vegetation and high BII would substantially reduce BII.