Grass-shed: Place and process for catalyzing perennial grass bioeconomies and their potential multiple benefits

Excerpt

Burgeoning human populations are increasing the demand for land, water, energy, food, and natural resources. Agricultural practices that use annual crop monocultures and high amounts of external inputs, such as synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, have led to considerable increases in production. However, reliance on these low-diversity/high-external-input systems has negatively impacted human health and natural resources (Goolsby et al. 2001; Hazell and Wood 2008). There is also a growing realization that effective conservation of resources, wildlife, and biodiversity will not occur solely through “land sparing” approaches (Matson and Vitousek 2006; Perfecto and Vandermeer 2010). Hence, there is increased need for achieving productivity and conservation simultaneously on working lands, i.e., multifunctionality (Jordan and Warner 2010).

Expanded grassland commerce offers one potential solution to the production and conservation challenge. Bioenergy has been identified as an important tool for achieving renewable energy, rural development, and conservation goals for soil, water, and wildlife (Rajagopal and Zilberman 2007). Low-input, diverse grasslands are a promising source of feedstocks for bioenergy and can deliver conservation benefits (Tilman et al. 2006). Although US agriculture and energy policies have aimed to encourage development of cellulosic bioenergy from sources such as perennial grasses (EISA 2007), this development has been sluggish. As…