Description of the Business As Usual (BAU)
The “Business as Usual” is conventional Short Rotation Coppice (SRC): typically a monoculture of fast-growing willow or poplar. It is managed strictly for low-value industrial energy chips with a 2–5 year harvest cycle. This system provides limited biodiversity and zero food output, often requiring herbicides during establishment to manage competing vegetation.
Description of the system change
The innovative Alley Coppice system transitions the monoculture into a triple-yield system. It integrates rows of food-producing trees (e.g., chestnut, walnut, or hazel) or high-value timber trees with wide alleys of short-rotation biomass. In all Member States, short rotation coppice is treated as an agricultural crop as long as the harvest cycle is no longer than 20 years.