Producing food and energy side-by-side may offer one of the best formulas for boosting countries’ food and energy security, a new FAO report has said.

The report published in Rome and made available to the newsmen  in Abuja last Thursday stated that the formula would simultaneously reduce poverty,

It is entitled: “Making Integrated Food-Energy Systems (IFES) Work for People and Climate – An Overview”, and it drew on specific examples from Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as from some developed countries.

The report showed how constraints to successfully integrating production of food and energy crops could be overcome.

“Farming systems that combine food and energy crops present numerous benefits to poor rural communities,” said Alexander Müller, FAO Assistant Director-General for Natural Resources.

“For example, poor farmers can use leftovers from rice crops to produce bioenergy, or in an agroforestry system, can use debris of trees used to grow crops such as fruits, coconuts or coffee beans for cooking,” he explained.

He noted that other types of food and energy systems use by-products from livestock for biogas production.

“With these integrated systems, farmers can save money because they don’t have to buy costly fossil fuel, nor chemical fertiliser if they use the slurry from biogas production.

“They can then use the savings to buy necessary inputs to increase agricultural productivity, such as seeds adapted to changing climatic conditions.

“This is an important factor given that a significant increase in food production in the next decades will have to be carried out under conditions of climate change.