Potential of Utilised Agricultural Area for Bioenergy Production: the Case of Latvia

Utilised agricultural area (UAA) used for food production is the national wealth of any country. Yet, it is important to maintain land for next generations in the face of climate changes and to utilise it efficiently today. Lately, the agricultural land in the European Union (EU) is being more and more used for biomass production to produce energy from renewable energy resources (RER) of agricultural origin. Therefore, competition increases among various types of agricultural land utilisation. A unique situation is observed in Latvia, since 302 thousand hectares (ha) or 13% of its utilised agricultural area was not used for agricultural production in 2011. Here, the main reason being uncultivated or overgrown land areas. In addition, its agricultural productivity – gross value added of the agricultural industry per hectare was the lowest one in the EU. The present research helped ascertain potentials for a more productive use of UAA and cultivation of presently unutilised agricultural area for increasing both the output of food and the output of biomass for energy production in Latvia.