| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Plant Agriculture, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1;2. Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Guelph, 50 Stone Road East, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1;3. Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, 1 Stone Road West, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 4Y2;1. Faculty of Chemistry, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland;2. Department of Physical Sciences, University of Oulu, Finland;1. Poznań University of Life Sciences, Institute of Biosystems Engineering,ul, Wojska Polskiego 50, 60-627, Poznań, Poland;2. Poznań University of Life Sciences, Faculty of Wood Technology, Department of Chemistry, ul, Wojska Polskiego 75, 60-625, Poznań, Poland;1. Department of Food Science and Engineering, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China;2. The First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University (Guangzhou Overseas Chinese Hospital), Guangzhou 510632, China;3. Key Laboratory of Digital Quality Evaluation of Chinese Materia Medica of SATCM, Engineering & Technology Research Center for Chinese Materia Medica Quality of Guangdong Province, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou 510006, China |
| Abstract: | The government of Ontario, Canada, has committed to stopping the use of coal for electrical generation by 2014 and agricultural biomass is being considered as replacement. However, there is limited information on whether the annual 2 million Mg of biomass required to replace coal could be sustainably supplied by agriculture and at what costs. This study assesses the sustainable availability and the farm-gate break-even cost of residue biomass from three crops (corn, soybean and winter wheat) grown under two common rotation scenarios in Ontario. Sustainably removable residue (SRR) rates are determined using a five-step approach that accounts for maintenance soil organic matter (MSOM) in the presence of yield and rotation variations across counties. Under typical SOM formation and decomposition conditions and assuming typical corn-soybean and corn-soybean-winter wheat rotation scenarios, about 1.1 million Mg of residue could be sustainably removed each year, primarily from the major agricultural counties in the province. While rotational complexity enhances SRR, the inclusion of soybean decreases available residue compared to corn and winter wheat. The break-even price for crop residues, representing the minimum price necessary to cover all variable and fixed costs for the farmer, is between $57 Mg?1 and $87 Mg?1. However, the actual amount supplied for each biomass price depends critically on the opportunity costs associated with not growing typical crops in the conventional manner. |
