When farmers make more money producing energy than food
published: 17/09/22, 08:54
Instead of being used to feed humans and animals, foodstuffs and crops are swallowed up en masse in methanizers. Bypassing the law to leave the field open to “energy corn” is child's play, well understood by farmers. Because the dice are loaded: producing energy pays more than raising cows...
But why waste food to produce energy, when anaerobic digestion boasts of recycling livestock effluents (slurry, manure, etc.)? Well, because certain crops and certain food products are much more methanogenic than these effluents, that is to say, they produce more methane. The fermentation of manure is much less efficient than that of maize.
Cultivated for human or animal food, certain plants are also used to nourish and protect the soil. But, following the law on energy transition of 2015, another type of crop appears in the fields: the intermediate crop for energy purposes (CIVE).
Planted and harvested between two main crops in a crop rotation, the CIVE is used as an input in an agricultural methanation unit, after having played a role of plant cover to protect the soil from erosion or the waterways from the runoff of pollutants. No limit is set for the introduction of CIVEs into methanizers, unlike the main crops (corn, cabbage, barley, etc.), which cannot exceed 15% of inputs per year...