Greenhouse gas emissions and climate change has been partially attributed to agricultural expansion by deforestation, while the pressure to assure food, fiber and energy for the future generations leads to the intensification of agricultural systems. The transition to more efficient systems is actually considered an important strategy to reduce deforestation and to spare land for other uses, including the recovery of environmental services and ecohydrological processes in the drainage basin such as carbon sink and water regulation. The Brazilian Federal Program for Low Carbon Agriculture (ABC Program) intends to reduce carbon emissions by stimulating technological processes that neutralize emissions or enhance the sinking of greenhouse gases. A pilot farm has been established to assess an intensive animal-plant farming system that incorporates anaerobic digestion for biogas, power generation and organic fertilizer production. Emergy Synthesis was chosen as a methodological tool to assess and to diagnosis the farm system design. The modified emergy assessment including externalities (greenhouse gas emissions) improves the understanding of integrated crop-livestock systems efficiency in internal recycling of nutrients and power conversion. The adoption of manure treatment in intensified agricultural systems can effectively contribute to enhance environmental and economic performances.
Macaúba is a tropical palm native in South and Central America, and its fruits present a high-quality oil for biodiesel production. Notwithstanding, macaúba's wastes and by-products are not usually repurposed as energy sources. This study shows a bibliometric analysis to assess macaúba's current applications and to investigate other energy recovery routes for its by-products. All the investigations focused on information about the main research fields related to macaúba. The study showed that only 397 articles and reviews were published from 1900 until 2021, and Brazil is the leading publisher. Although oleic and protein macaúba's by-products are applied as animal feed, some conversion routes related to the lignocellulosic contents, present in non-edible parts, were identified thermal conversion, combustion, gasification, pyrolysis, biochemical conversion, fermentation, esterification, and anaerobic digestion.From the agricultural perspective, plant characterization, germination, embryogenesis, and seed development were also found. From the bibliometric study, the different potential applications of macaúba for energy, pharmaceutical, and food purposes were listed to support the identification of a knowledge gap on its by-products revaluation.
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