STRATEGIES FOR MARGINAL LANDS MANAGEMENT IN RAIN-FED AGRICULTURAL FARM IN SPAIN: ECONOMIC AND ENERGY ANALYSES

The profitability of traditional agricultural production under rain-fed conditions is being dramatically decreasing in Spain, which is connected to the low productivity and the costs increase of raw materials. To these factors it can be added that the lower production areas are usually more affected by climate change conditions. In conjunction, soil carbon depletion is also a well-known fact in very extends agricultural country areas, which poses environmental problems, particularly in abandoned and lower productive lands. In that context, the number of mixed farms that combine agricultural and extensive livestock systems simultaneously has dramatically been reduced, to about half, in the period 1999 to 2013. Additionally, the new CAP requires more restrictive environmental and crop diversification measures. In this context, objective of this work is to comparatively study the impacts that the implementation of different alternatives, including the introduction of tall wheatgrass for biomass production, in the marginal area of a rain-fed cereal farm in Central-northern Spain may have on the economy, energy balance and energy efficiency of the farm production system. The results achieved show the interest the introduction of herbaceous perennial crops may have to increase the resilience of farms production systems in low productive EU agricultural areas.