1 Reporting on marginal lands for bioenergy feedstock production - a modest proposal Brian K. Richards1*, Cathelijne R. Stoof1, Ian Cary1, Peter B. Woodbury2

1 Department of Biological & Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 148532 Department of Crop & Soil Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853* Corresponding author: phone +1 607 255 2463; email bkr2@cornell.edu

Electronic Supplementary Material: Results of literature reviewUsing ISI Web of Knowledge we searched for publications using the following search criteria:

1. “marginal land(s)” or “marginal soil(s)” in the title,2. English language only,3. Published in the period 2008-2012.

This resulted in 58 publications total, of which one was in fact dated 2013 [1], four were written in other languages than English [2-5] and two were not retrievable [6,7]. The remaining 51 publications were analyzed for explicit or implicit definitions of the term ‘marginal’, of which results are given in the table below.

ReferenceQuotes of text in which definition of marginal is (not) given, with comments (italics) and highlights (bold) added by the authors of the present paper.

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[8] Generally, marginal land is evaluated in terms of a cost/benefit analysis and is economically marginal (Tang et al., 2010). However, in China, the Ministry of Agriculture defines marginal land that may be used for growing energy crops as wasteland and paddy land fallowed in winter. Wasteland includes natural grassland, sparse forestland, scrubland and unused land that may be used to grow energy crops.

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[9] Not defined; marginal appears in the title but not in the rest of the paper. 1

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[10] Further, only marginal lands are chosen for orchards, which are inherently poor in soil properties and do not have an assured source of irrigation.

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[11] These degradation processes affect physical, chemical and biological properties of soils, which in turn adversely influence plant growth and crop production. Since the term marginal soils indicates loss of soil productivity and soils on the verge of degradation, both the terms, degraded /marginal soils, are used interchangeably in this review.In this review, the scientific evidence of how various aromatic plant species can be fitted in agricultural production systems to address the twin issues of economic crop production and environmental benefits has been presented.

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[12] Remote sensing and other data are used to globally characterize land as marginal based on predominantly biophysical features that render it ‘non-competitive’ for the purpose of commercial food agriculture. A remote (and spatiotemporally static) characterization of marginality is unable to capture the shifting character of what constitutes marginality in an economic sense and is therefore a non-sequitur for guiding land use decisions on the ground.

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[13] There are a lot of implicit references in this paper to what they consider to be marginal. Degraded, stress-affected, drought prone, etc.

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[14] Throughout the World, there are extensive areas of marginal land that are unsuitable for crop production, but ideal for the growth of energy plants with high stress

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resistance. These lands include barren mountains, barren lands and alkaline lands.

[15] The area is considered marginal for wheat growth on the basis of climate limitations. 1 1

[16] Marginal land for energy plants refers to the land that has relatively poor natural condition but is able grow energy plants, or land that currently is not used for agricultural production but can grow certain plants. In general, China's marginal land for the development of energy plants includes woodland (shrub land, sparse forest land), grassland and barren land (including shoal/bottomland, saline and alkaline land, and bare land).

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[17] Focus is placed, in particular, on growing this crop on marginal land, first of all to avoid competition with food production and at the same time to help recover and improve the quality of lands considered unfit for agriculture. Idle, degraded, under-utilized lands, wastelands and abandoned croplands are all different terms to refer to marginal or set-aside areas, often characterized by low soil fertility and lack of water, constraining both plant growth and nutrients availability. According to the most common definitions [20,21], “marginal land” comprises all non-cultivated areas where actual primary production is too low to allow competitive agriculture, whereas “degraded land” refers to land previously cultivated and now marginal, due to soil degradation or other impacts resulting from inappropriate management or external factors (e.g. climate change). Some lands are converted into marginal when excess pollution is generated by human-dominated processes (including inaccurate or illegal disposal of liquid and solid

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waste). In such cases, cropping for bioenergy or biosubstrates might be an option for land recovery.

[18] Agricultural land classes 4 (soils with severe limitations) and 5 (soils with very severe limitations) were considered marginal for agricultural use, whereas land classes 1 through 3 were usually managed for annual food (or forage) crop production and land classes 6 and 7 were regarded as unmanageable (SK-LRU, 2004, p. 20)

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[19] Two marginal sites: first site had heavy textured clay soil, and management practices were performed over short time periods in the spring because the soil before this time was usually too wet, and later soil was too compacted. The second experimental site was located on peaty muck soil, which is pe riodically too wet

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[20] Marginal appears in title but not in the rest of the paper. 1[21] The study of marginal lands is focused on alluvial lands,

which were seen originally as empty or waste lands but gradually developed into safety nets for the poor.Marginal lands were used only temporarily because of limited access or varying quality, which restricted the quantity of crops that could be planted. They overlap with or border on “common property resources,” including fisheries, wildlife, grazing areas, hills and mountains, and forests. Sometimes these are open-access resources lacking effective rules defining property rights, but often they belong to an identifiable community of interdependent users, such as villages.These lands are usually characterized by low economic productivity, low population density, limited use, and insecure tenure arrangements.

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[22] Sites were rated using a land marginality index (LMI) 1 1

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based on land capability classes, slope, soil erodibility, soil hydraulic conductivity, and soil tolerance factors extracted from a soil survey (SSURGO) database. Principal components analysis was used to develop a soil quality index (SQI) for the study sites based on 12 soil physical and chemical properties.Marginal lands are considered unfit for prime agricultural use because of poor land quality characteristics (United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD), 1997). Although the concept of marginality encompasses biophysical and social dimensions, it commonly focuses on bio-physical aspects with the assumption that socioeconomic marginality originates from bio-physical limitations. And while there is no single best indicator of land quality, a number of indicators have been used earlier such as soil productivity (or suitability) for crop growth, land capability classification (Hardie & Parks, 1997), and specific soil characteristics such as water-holding capacity (Lichtenberg, 1989; Wu and Brorsen, 1995).

[23] By expanding energy biomass production on marginal lands that are not currently used for crops, food prices increase and indirect climate change effects can be mitigated. Studies of the availability of marginal lands for dedicated bioenergy crops have focused on biophysical land traits, ignoring the human role in decisions to convert marginal land to bioenergy crops.Does the United States have enough non-crop marginal land to meet the growing need for liquid biofuels? The answers so far have focused on the biophysical characteristics of marginal lands (Perlack et al., 2005; Campbell et al., 2008; Cai et al., 2011).

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[24] The objective of this project was to examine the potential of a range of oilseed species to produce biodiesel on marginal land, i.e. land with limitations to growing high yields of food crops.

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[25] It can be grown on dry, stony sloping marginal lands with high ground water level and shallow soil, and is resistant to high temperature and severe droughts.

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[26] Biomass crops in the proposed cropping system would be grown on marginal land that is not usually used for producing arable crops, so as not to compete directly with crop-based food production systems. 1 1The soil limitations at the Flaxmere and Kerikeri sites were a shallow rooting depth and low available waterholding capacity (AWC), making both marginal for arable food crops.

[27] Marginal land is defined in many different ways including idle or fallow cropland, and abandoned farm- and pasture land. For details see paper.

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[28] Both the region of the tea growing area of NorthEast suffers water logging in varying degrees. No resistant/tolerant cultivar to water logging is available for cultivation where water logging could emerge as a problem. In order to exploit the available marginal land, varieties tolerant to water logging should be available.

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[29] As much of the arable land in these countries are already under cultivation, increased livestock productivity will have to come from improving the productivity per unit area or expansion of marginal lands that have traditionally supplied grazing resources to livestock (Delgado et al. 1999).

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[30] In fact, several obstacles must be overcome before ethanol production from marginal land can play a significant role in China’s fuel supply. These include high costs to put marginal lands into production, difficulties associated with collecting and transporting feedstock from the highly segmented marginal lands to ethanol plants, the shortage of water resources, and the low natural fertility of these marginal lands (Qiu et al., 2010).

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[31] Tian et al. [16] Used land may be cultivated for growing non-food energy plants ;

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Yan et al. [17] Used land with poor natural conditions, and may be used for growing energy crops;Tang et al. [8] Used land with poor natural conditions, and may be used for growing energy crops, as well as land that is marginally located and not usually in use for food crops due to the smallness of size, or unclear ownership;Kou et al. [13] Land may be used for growing energy crops as wasteland and paddy land fallowed in winter.

[32] Definition 1 Land, such as upland, or desert border, which is difficult to cultivate, and which yields little profit Answers.com

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Definition 2 Land of poor quality with regard to agricultural use and unsuitable for housing and other uses Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=1591Definition 3 Land, which is of little value because of some deficiency, such as poor access, lack of adequate rainfall, or steep Terrain www.getsoldon.com/real-estate-glossary-mDefinition 4 Land whose value has been diminished due to

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some internal physical defect, or negative external condition. In most cases, the cost to correct the flaw or condition is as much or more than the expected return from the property www.evaluation-associates.com/ glossary.htmDefinition 5 Low quality land the value of whose production barely covers its cultivation costs European Environmental Agency (EEA) www.eionet.europa. eu/gemet/concept?ns=1&cp=5023Definition 6 Marginal land is winter-followed paddy land and waste land that may be used to cultivate energy crops MoA (Ministry of Agriculture, the People’s Republic of China)Definition 7 Marginal land refers to land currently not in use, with poor natural condition but able grow plants. It is not used in agricultural production but can grow certain plants Anonymous, 2008

[33] In this article, however, it is revealed that commodification of rural areas in Norway is closely connected with exploitation of the physical environment, including through the re-resourcing of land from marginal agriculture and abandoned industrial sites into second home developments.Additional examples are given of production costs and benefits of farms.

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[34] Term marginal does not appear. 1

[35] The projected volume of waste based and 2nd generation biofuels is small or marginal, less than 50% of the volume estimated in the AGLINK simulation.

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[36] Three of these sites were marginal lands in that two were 1 0 1

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not suitable for conventional agriculture and one was regulated as a brownfield due to prior industrial pollution. Three of the sites were less productive (UP and LC) or impaired (Rose—a regulatory brownfield, i.e., use restricted due to industrial pollutants) and are termed “marginal lands”

[37] The soil-types of this zone are inherently low in major soil nutrients and trace elements to support arable crop production (Iwuafor and Kuma, 1995). This deficiency is widespread and worsened by bush burning and crop residue removal, continuous leaching of soil mineral elements, erosion of soil particles and attendant degradation of arable lands. Consequently most of these soil-types are physically fragile and chemically suffer from ionic imbalance, acidity, especially those with low buffering capacity. These characteristics are associated with marginal soils.

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[38] Environmentalists use the phrase “marginal land” to refer to ecologically sensitive areas (e.g., near rivers and streams) that should not be farmed, but left in their natural state. Relegated to the margins of precarious employment in the academic workforce, contract faculty within universities are, in a sense, being exploited on marginal land.

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[39] The ‘forgotten’ crop, Arundo donax (Adx), showed a great potential to produce high biomass yields per annum, when grown on saline, marginal land with low quality, saline irrigation wastewater (45.2 t/ha of dry tops) and also on arable soils at Roseworthy with treated sewage water (51 t/ha of dry tops). Adx can be grown with little fertiliser and without any pesticides in many situations.

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[40] Marginal not defined, nor examples given. 1[41] Marginal not defined, nor examples given. 1[42] The sense in which this paper uses the term ‘marginality’

relates to the physical terms of land and climate and the effect on land-related human activity of the environmental limits imposed by these, rather than that alternative usage of the word that refers to distance from a political centre. But the distinctive lifestyles associated with different human societies are also part of this sense of the concept of ‘marginality’.

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[43] The soils of the R&D farms are mostly marginal soils – hilly terrain with basaltic ‘murum’ substratum, alkali and saline alkali soils.

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[44] It has been proposed that marginal lands (MLs), defined as land unfit for the economic cultivation of food crops, could be used for biomass production using species such as perennial North American prairie grasses (e.g. switchgrass, Panicum virgatum), Asian grass (Miscanthus sinensis), hybrid poplar trees, the medicinal plant Jatropa curcas, and others.

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[45] Utilizing abandoned agricultural and mine lands for bioenergy agriculture could overcome both problems and Kentucky and many states in the southeast have high abandonment rates (Campbell et al., 2008). However, before this study, it was unclear how much land was marginal, defined as previously used for mining or agriculture and moreover has not yet gone through secondary ecological succession, which is then classified as forestland.But, utilizing marginal agricultural, abandoned or

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reclaimed mine land, and woodland areas has unique challenges related to establishing, growing, harvesting, and transporting the crops from the land to an end user.

[46] CAM is estimated to be expressed in ;7% of vascular plant species (Winter and Smith, 1996a), many of which dominate the plant biomass of arid, marginal regions of the world.

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[47] Grazing of livestock is an important component of land management system in nonagricultural marginal areas, whereas, rangeland livestock grazing represents the most suitable land use (Jones & Martin, 1994). The rangelands support 30 million herds of livestock (…)

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[48] Use of marginal land and secondary resources (such as compost, biosolids and other recycled organics as a soil input; and other resources such as agricultural and forestry residues as a source of biomass) is an emerging opportunity in this biomass debate. Marginal land includes previously developed land, underutilized land and land affected by diffuse contamination. AH across Europe there are areas of land that have been degraded by past use, and that are not possible to restore easily or sustainably using conventional methods. Such previously developed land includes areas affected by mining, fallout from industrial processes such as smelting, activities related to forestry and the pulp and paper industry, areas elevated with contaminated dredged diments, former landfill sifes and many other areas where the decline of industrial activity has left a legacy of degraded land and communities.

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[49] It should be noted that habitations of village margins and margins of farming lands (marginal lands) can play a vital role in enriching and development of various species of plants1

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[50] It should be noted that habitations of village margins and margins of farming lands (marginal lands) can play a vital role in enriching and development of various species of plants1

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[51] In this paper, we defined marginal land based the specific physical criteria (table 2) and including unused land as cultivable potential land sources and land that is marginally located and not usually in use for food crops due to the smallness of size, or unclear ownership.

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[52] "Marginal for row crop production" but not why was chosen because it represents the type of marginal land currently in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Land in the CRP is a potential land base for perennial biomass energy crops 191. These results support previous indirect comparisons [9] and demonstrate that perennial herbaceous energy crops can produce as much ethanol per hectare on marginal, surplus cropland as grain crops.

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[53] Marginal cropland includes bottomlands that tend to have excess moisture, ridgetops or high slopes that can be excessively dry, and lands that have been rated as having medium- to low-quality soils for farming (Lasanta et al 2000, IUCN, 2001). Land quality in Iowa is uslaly categorized as high, medium or low crop suitability (Edwards and Smith 2005) and marginal croplands are often rated low.

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1 Note that the text defining ‘marginal’ in paper [49] and [50] is identical. This is not an error - the papers are in fact nearly identical.

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[54] Marginal land too wet for maize (Zea mays L.) and switchgrass.Well adapted for sustainable biomass production on marginal land too wet and or too saline (e.g., Land Capability Class V) for production of maize or switchgrass.

1 1Poorly drained marginal land;Gravelly marginal land;Eroded marginal land;Much of the marginal farmland in the semiarid northern Great Plains that has limitations for crop production related to soil characteristics is undulating with soil conditions on shoulders and back slopes similar to those in this study.

[55]

These soils are considered as marginal soils, becausethey have a limited distribution area and have not muchcontributed to the regional or national socio–economic development.

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[56] … Analysis of poplar plantations functioning in two different sites, which can be defined as marginal.Plantations have been situated in different site conditions and different availability of water resources. Plantation W1 has been situated in a complex of black-earths formed on loamy bed. Silt layer has appeared on 70 cm below ground level, has been impenetrable for water (tab. 1) and has had large bulk density. These attributes constrain capillary suction, infiltration of water and growth of tree roots.Plantation W2 has been situated in a complex of luvisols formed on dusty bed.

Marginal soils often have unstable water supplies.

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Planning of biomass plantations, especially trees like poplar or willow on marginal soils with unstable water economy is encumbered by risk.

[57] No definition given 1[58] No definition given 1

Reference Text in which definition of marginal is (not) given

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