Economic and environmental performance of agro-energy production chains

The design and implementation of agro-energy production chains make some important questions risen about their economic and environmental sustainability, related to aspects such as the yield of the different types of crops, the transportation infrastructure availability, the land dispersion (with the consequent logistics problems), the balance between crops devoted to food or energy production, and the exploitation of land and natural resources. Therefore, suitable key performance indicators need to be provided in order to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of agroenergy production, from both the economic and environmental points of view. With this regard, in this paper an Enterprise Input-Output (EIO) approach is adopted for describing the agro-energy production chains and measuring its performance. The production chain is represented as a network of processes. Indicators about the CO2 balance, the food vs. bio-fuel production, the net energy production, the imports and exports of energy and fuel, the workforce level, and the value added are identified and analysed. EIO models can be useful both as an accounting tool, to compute all the materials and energy flows, and as a planning one, to evaluate and compare the performance associated to different scenarios. Finally, some examples are provided in order to investigate how spatial, technical, and economic issues can differently affect the economic and environmental performance of agro-energy production chains