La biomasse, activité alternative au développement des zones rurales

III- Objectives of the installation of the biomass like energy

The One renewable source of energy having a potential of exploitation is an asset for a rural zone. According to the territory, it can offer various advantages as the exploitation of the local resources which contributes to improve the economic situation by exporting energy or by decreasing the external provisioning, or the creation of jobs qualified and the lightening of the load on the environment.

1- reduction of the energy dependence

As we saw previously, the renewable sources of energy are of indigenous origin and can contribute to reduce the dependence with respect to the imports and to increase the security of the supply. The development of the renewable sources of energy can contribute actively to the creation of jobs, mainly within small and medium-sized companies which are the screen of economic fabric of the community and which represents besides the majority of the companies in the various renewable energy sectors. The deployment of the renewable sources of energy can become one of the engines of the regional development tending towards a stronger social and economic cohesion in the Community.

The discounted growth of the consumption of energy in many third countries, in Asia, in Latin America and Africa, which on the whole can be ensured by a recourse to renewable energies, offers promising outlets to European industries which occupy, in many fields, a dominant position with regard to technologies of renewable energies.

2- Relaunching of the rural world

Renewable energies agreeing particularly well with the rural medium, one can then say that the promotion of their exploitation should generate prospects interesting for rural employment and the economic activity.

a) A durable and profitable economic activity

the exploitation of renewable energies can contribute to the regional development by injecting into the rural territories a source of income invaluable and durable. The White Paper « Energy for the future : renewable sources of energy » stress their importance like element of cohesion and development in the underprivileged areas (objective 1 in particular, to see appendix 10) : « the funds invested on a regional scale in the development of the renewable sources of energy could contributes to raise the standards of living and the incomes in the the least supported, peripheral, insular, isolated or declining areas "^31(*).

b) Creation of jobs

As we saw previously, the Commission fixed itself for objective to double the share of renewable energies in the total consumption of energy to pass from 6% in 1997 to 12% in 2010. The Green Book «  Energy for the future : renewable sources of energy » estimates that this evolution should give a new impulse to SME and will also exert beneficial effects on employment. The biocarburants are also creators of employment in the rural zones and contribute to preserve rural fabric by offering new outlets to the agricultural production.

The quality and the type of generated employment vary according to the characteristics of each technology considered. For the biomass, employment concentrates in the production and the collection of the raw materials. European Association for biomass (the AEBIOM) thinks that 1 billion stations could be created in this sector from here 2010 if the potential of the biomass were fully exploited. One also envisages exports for an amount of 17 billion euro, generating 350.000 additional employment.

Moreover, agriculture remains a vector of economic and social cohesion. The average tendency of European agricultural employment is clearly directed with the fall. This reduction should not bring to think that agriculture is dedicated to play a secondary part in the process of economic and social cohesion of certain areas, in particular of the areas known as rural. Even become minority in the campaigns, the farmers remain the main managers of the territory. Consequently, agricultural employment determines to a large extent the level of attractivity of these areas, in term of landscape in particular.

For a long time, the EU became aware of this essential role of agriculture and encourages certain activities of diversification. Two payments in particular trace the way. Payment (the EEC) n° 2078/92 of the Council, of June 30, 1992, relates to the methods of agricultural production compatible with the requirements of the environmental protection as well as the maintenance of the natural space whose certain objectives are subjected to a mode of assistances:

· to encourage the maintenance of the arable and forest lands abandoned where that proves to be necessary for ecological reasons of natural risks or fire, and to prevent of this fact the risks related to the depopulation of the agricultural areas

· to encourage the shrinking of the arable lands in the long run at environmental ends

· to encourage the management of the grounds for the access of the public and the leisures

In the same way, Payment (the EEC) n° 2080/92 of the Council, of June 30, 1992, instituting a community system of assistances to forest measurements in agriculture aims to an alternative use of the arable lands by timbering and to the development of the forest activities in agricultural employment.

The developed functions of diversification these last years are far from being negligible. They constitute, on a given territory, a new element of social integration of the credits. Four fields seem to take a consequent importance as regards creations of jobs:

· the safeguarding of the landscapes, the protection of the natural zones of great value and the habitats like the wetlands, the protected rivers and zones

· a durable exploitation of the forest, preserving the biodiversity and offering other functions (for example, in entertaining matter)

· the development and the use of plants with nonfood goal, for example for industrial needs or for energy production

· biological agriculture

Other fields are carrying a potentiality of creation of employment, and particularly in the rural areas: the country holidays, the patrimonial stock management, the services rendered to the communities, etc to exploit these possibilities, the farmers must mobilize the regional and local authorities, of the companies, the O.N.G and the financeurs. This implication in the management of the environment can support appropriatenesses creation of jobs and incomes complementary or alternative. In order to answer these requests, agricultural employment already started to adapt in certain areas thanks in particular to the emergence of new forms of employment (associations, groupings of employers, etc). The development of these new activities cannot yet at present be quantified precisely.

The political challenge which the Diary 2000, in its agricultural part and more particularly rural development, tries to answer, is to weaken or even break the bond between agricultural exodus and rural migration. The new regulation increases considerably the margins of freedom given to the national or proper authorities, to set up the programs most adapted to the local situation. With the request express of the Council of Ministers, the field of application of the new regulation was extended to the diversification of the activities in the field agricultural or close to agriculture and with the basic services necessary for the economy and the rural population.

A project aiming at creating a power station of cogeneration functioning with the biomass generates several established posts in the agricultural activities and/or the collection of fuel, like at least a part-time employment to deal with the boiler and equipment of production.

* ³¹ COM (97) 599 final of the 26.11.1997, «  Energy for the future  : renewable sources of energy  »- White Paper establishing a strategy and a Community action plan, European Commission, p 15