In industrialized countries a high share of marginal agricultural
land including post-mining areas are currently not
being managed as to the inefficient production and compensatory
subsidies still given by the European Union (EU)
for leaving these areas untouched. However, the upcoming
significant reduction of EU subsidies in the agricultural sector
until 2013 calls for innovative, i.e. economically feasible,
socially accepted, and ecologically sound strategies for the
revalidation of such marginal lands. Under tropical and subtropical
conditions agroforestry systems have proven to cope
with these aims (Kang, 1997; Muschler and Bonnemann, 1997).
Thus, also for temperate regions the integration of trees in the
agricultural landscape, particularly onmarginal arable land, is
supposed to be a promising option for future land use. However,
with regard to the selection of trees for such land use
systems there is still a lack of knowledge in terms of the yield
potentials and the yield sustainability of different fast growing
tree species under unfavourable conditions
of biomass for energy and industry than on food