@article{kirsch001,

title = {Strategic Planning of Agroforestry Supply Chains [Preprint]},

author = {Thomas Kirschstein},

url = {https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-10756931/v1},

year  = {2026},

date = {2026-10-06},

journal = {In Review [Journal of Industrial Ecology]},

abstract = {Agroforestry systems integrate fast-growing woody perennials into agricultural land. They deliver multiple biomass fractions of differing quality to food, chemical, pulp-and-paper, as well as energy industries. The woody biomass feedstock produced can be used to substitute fossil feedstocks in chemical and energy industry. Additionally, agroforestry increases climate resiliency and sustainability of agricultural production. Agroforestry-based woody biomass shows substantial feedstock potentials as most land is used for agriculture in central Europe. However, agroforestry is only applied in marginal scale in central Europe. A core challenge of agroforestry is to establish economically viable regional bioeconomy networks which connect partners from agriculture and downstream industries. Agroforestry-based supply chains need to be organized such that all partners benefit economically in the long run. This paper presents a supply chain design model that helps to support design decisions for agroforestry-based supply chains. It models agroforestry establishment and harvest scheduling on farm-level in a linear multi-echelon network design model. It relies on biomass growth models describing biomass production in agroforestry systems. These biomass fractions are allocated to chemical, pulp-and-paper, and energy industry depending on quality and demand restrictions. The model is applied in a case study focusing on central Germany. The optimization results indicate that agroforestry-based supply chains can be configured in an economically viable way. Agroforestry systems can serve as feedstock suppliers at a considerable scale. Profitability of agroforestry-based agricultural practice seems to be competitive with traditional agricultural production and provides woody biomass at a competitive cost, provided transports are not too long.},

keywords = {Agroforestry, Biobased production, Bioeconomy network design, Biomass cascading, DiP-SMART Agroforst, Industrial symbiosis, Supply chain optimization},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}