The role of agriculture in producing renewable energy

Abstract

Global warming, climate change, extreme poverty in rural area are critical issues to be solved all over the world. Global warming is one of the world's most pressing environmental problems and known for years. It is the result of the actions of mankind, specifically the use of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) which has caused emissions of dangerous greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. In 2020, the President of the European Commission made climate change a top priority, which is why the Green Deal with the ultimate goal of leading Europe to becoming climate neutral by 2050. The numerous researches that explore the link between renewable energies and agriculture have mainly focused on models of analysis of the efficiency in the use of renewable energies by farmers. The thesis explores the less investigated aspect of efficiency in the case of renewable energy production rather than consumption by farms. The research question to which the thesis tries to answer is, ultimately, whether agricultural companies that produce renewable energy are efficient and, therefore, propose a sustainable model that can find a wider diffusion. In this perspective, the thesis is developed in three sections. The first section presents the problem in quantitative terms by analysing the production and trends of fossil fuels and the related problems encountered in recent decades. Subsequently, the second section will focus on the different renewable resources produced by agriculture. Finally, the third section will present a statistical analysis, based on FADN data, aiming at highlighting the main characteristics (such as size, location, composition of revenues) of farms producing renewable energy. Some synthetic considerations can be found in the final section of the thesis.