Integrated Food-Energy Systems
An Integrated Food-Energy System (IFES) is a diversified agricultural production farming system that incorporates agro-biodiversity and builds on the principles of sustainable production intensification. IFES can be small-scale operations managed at village/household level or large-scale operations designed for commercial activities. IFES can optimize land use through a combination of food and energy crops and/or optimize biomass use through its a cascading sequence to produce both food and energy. Depending on the circumstances, the generation of solar, thermal, geothermal, wind and/or hydro energy can be an integral part of the system.
FAO has developed an analytical framework to assess the sustainability and the possibility to replicate the IFES. This tool was used in Vietnam in 2015, and in Mozambique and Ghana in 2016-2017.