Environment or food: Modeling future land use patterns of miscanthus for bioenergy using fine scale data

Lunyu Xie, Sarah L. MacDonald, Maximilian Auffhammer, Deepak Jaiswal and Peter Berck

Ecological Economics, 2019, vol. 161, issue C, 225-236

Abstract: Using fine-scale panel data and an econometric model, we predict land use change in the Midwestern United States if a new bioenergy crop, Miscanthus × Giganteus (miscanthus), is introduced. To explain farmers' current crop choices, we use a local, limited dependent variable regression based on soil and weather characteristics. To this model, we add miscanthus as a new crop, based on its place dependent BioCro model-predicted yield. We find that the vast majority of land used to grow miscanthus will come from land now used for non-major crops, pasture, woodland, and other uses. This implies that miscanthus can help mitigate climate change by displacing oil usage without causing food conflict.

Keywords: Bioenergy; Food crops; Land use; Miscanthus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:161:y:2019:i:c:p:225-236

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.03.013

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