DEMO-SITE B
The Netherlands
REEDS4ALL in Rhine-Ijssel Delta (NL)
Main crop
Reed
Responsible Partner
Key information
Challenges
Reed harvesting and paludiculture are in decline because land-use pressure and successful water
purification schemes are reducing production rates and product quality of reed used as building material. Logistics are more expensive as larger areas become flooded due to drainage, causing land-subsidence.
Solutions
Expand reed farming activities towards degraded peat soils enriched in nutrients, which also improves logistics. Create synergies by using nutrient drainage water to irrigate existing reed farms. Quantify nitrogen (N) removal potentials and reduced ammonia emission, to be included in national N budgeting for livestock sector and individual land-owners/farms. Provide access to carbon markets for reduced emissions from soils, water bodies and carbon insetting in paludi-biomass.
Outcomes
Improved paludiculture crop management on 55 ha including increasing sites’ fertility, expanding reed farming to degraded peat soils, improved harvesting logistics and higher diversity of biomass uses. Innovative methods to expand reed cultivation using new machinery for diffusing donor material (rhizomes) and low-cost furrow irrigation systems run on solar power. Diversified business options by a tool to assess C sequestration potential in soils, below biomass and peat mosses. Quantified benefits from N reduction schemes. Diversified product chains (building, biochar, substrates) and biomass handling innovations available for upscaling.
Replicability
Upscaling prepared and partly initiated up to continental scale (Locally 1 500 ha; regionally (10 years) ~20 000 ha, nationally up to 50 000 ha). Banks holding loans on land, governmental regulation and biomass markets are the 3 critical bottlenecks. Logistics can be exported to other EU countries and worldwide. The market for substrates from Paludiculture biomass is annually 2M m3 (~0.16 Mt dry matter) for use in horticulture.
