According to lEA data (lEA, 1996), biomass accounted
for slightly less than 4% of primary energy consumption in
the OECD area in 1992. There is no available data on how
much of this energy originated from agricultural biomass.
The lack of data is probably because usage of agricultural
biomass for energy purposes today is small and marginal,
compared with the use of biomass from forestry. Overproduction
in agriculture, available land through set-aside programs,
greenhouse gas abatement efforts, and public focus on subsidies
to agriculture are the main forces behind the renewed political
interest in energy crops from agriculture. A popular idea
is that the transfer of subsidies from traditional agriculture
to energy crops would be a win-win game - agriculture
would gain through reduced costly overproduction and export
subsidies. The environment would gain through replacement
of fossil with more environmentally friendly renewable biomass
energy, and at the same time this approach would not
necessarily have to cost taxpayers more (Hall and House,
1995). As I will discuss later, this way of solving the surplus
problem in agriculture is an expensive one and is based on a
misconception (see also Bolin, this volume).