BOAT

Context

Dedicated to document and analyse to the high stakes of a sustainable bioeconomy, and especially the need for an integrative systematic approach at the local level, the BOAT project (Agricultural Biomass at the local level) was laureate of the GRAINES call of projects by ADEME (French National Agency of Energy).

Objectives

The projects aims at articulating the nature and the modalities of agricultural biomass’ use and valorization at the territorial scale, with a territorial foresight participative project. The project is interdisciplinary at its core : territorial ecology for the main framework, environmental and economic assessment of the agricultural system and its impacts, agronomy and soil sciences. The goal is to document and analyse the agricultural metabolic network at the territorial scale, through i. biomass caracterisation from the farm to the first transformation stage and throughout the value chains and non farmers actors involved ii. assessment of energy, environmental and socio-economic footprint, and iii. participative foresight studies. The originality of the projects relies in its approach that integrates metabolism and governance within a comprehensive systemic framework, and that it allows inter-value chain analysis, through which appears synergy, competition or dependency effects that shape the sustainability and territorial capabilities of the system.

Methodology

The methodology will be implemented on two territories (infra-departement scale, north of Aube and Vallée de la Drôme) and will be a basis for a participative project with actors of those territories to (re)think the future production and use of agricultural biomass.