Energy, the new crop for farmers?
Farmers may feel buoyed by the prospects outlined in the article which appeared in the Hereford Times on 17 April 2003. Here at last is a crop they can grow which offers long term contract security and cash, as well as appearing to make a contribution to solving an environmental problem. A few words of caution before gettting carried away on a tide of euphoria.

• The technology behind both the ARBRE Biomass Plant in Yorkshire and the wood burning power station at Newbridge on Wye, Powys has failed to deliver. The companies supporting them then found themelves with financial difficulties, and neither scheme has produced a single unit of electricity. This left, I believe, those farmers in Yorkshire who had already started growing the fuel crops with no market and contracts not worth the paper they were written on.
• Fourteen of the UK's conventional coal powered stations have now registered to use biomass [olive residues, straw and wood chips - source: The Ecologist May 2003]. Do we now need more power stations?
• Biomass Power Stations are only of value if they are carbon neutral. There is a fine balance in achieving this. In the strictest sense all the co2 emissions resulting from the manufacture of building materials, the construction of the plant and future maintenance, the transportation of fuel from farm to plant, the emissions generated by the process of growing the fuel, harvesting it and storing it all have to be absorbed by the growing plant material before it is carbon neutral.
• Conservationists have concerns about the impact on biodiversity of such non-native crops as Miscanthus. Research into their impact was a part of the ARBRE project. Certainly miscanthus and short-term rotation coppice [SRC] require strict weed control using herbicides in the establishment phase. Once miscanthus is established the density of the canopy is such that it shades out all undergrowth anyway. It is well known that monocultures are poor wildlife habitat. RSPB research indicates that the types of lowland farmland likely to be used for biomass crops are also the farmland currently supporting our most endangered farmland birds. Without significant areas of wildlife set-aside within the biomass crop system that land will become even less able to support wildlife.
• There is also concern about the impact on the countryside and landscape of large scale planting of energy crops. The article quotes a 20MW plant requiring a minimum of 3,500 ha of SRC and/or miscanthus [one assumes from this that a substantial amount of the fuel will be forest waste]. British Biogen gives as a guide that 560ha of SRC would fuel 1MW of electricity [source CPRE]. However you look at this, it is not an odd field here and there. It is likely to result in a fundamental change to substantial areas of the countryside. There will be a striking visual impact - miscanthus, which can be cropped for up to 15 continuous years, grows to a height of 3.5m. and SRC is not ancient woodland. To minimise transportation overheads biomass crops will need to be grown in more or less contiguous blocks.
• What impact will this sort of farming have on our hedgerows and other field boundaries?
• What impact will the harvesting system, drying and storing on the farm have on inhabitants of that countryside? Increased traffic, increased noise, decreased landscape value?
• What impact will the increased lorry traffic have on the lanes from farm to main road, and main road to power station? Noise, congestion, accident potential, pollution will all increase degrading the quality of the countryside. Herefordshire remains a relatively tranquil and uncongested county but this could change.
• What impact will these new crops have on the water tables and dependant damp or wetland habitats?
• The ARBRE project was felt to be acceptable as the plant was located opposite an existing power station and crops were to be grown within a 30 mile radius of the plant. [source CPRE]. Consider the impact of this situation in Herefordshire if, for example, the power station were sited at Madley.
• A proposed biomass scheme with a 5.5MW output was proposed near Cricklade, Wilts and was rejected at appeal mainly on landscape grounds in July 2001. "The plant would have been taller and significantly larger than anything else in the vicinity with two stacks each 25 metres high." [source CPRE].

Stella Woodman

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