Integrating agricultural pest biocontrol into forecasts of energy biomass production

Biological control of pests is an important ecosystem service in agricultural landscapes as it protects crops and reduces the need for insecticide use. Establishing a sustainable bioenergy industry requires considering the role of biological control in farm decision making. An important question is how biomass supply changes when farmers take into account agricultural pest biocontrol services. A spatially-explicit bioeconomic model of potential biomass supply that incorporates the effect of biological control on crop choice is employed using data from four Wisconsin counties. The results of the study show that integrating agricultural biocontrol into farmers' production technology generally results in biomass from crop residues being supplied more readily (at a lower relative price). (C)2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.