Grassland agriculture is experiencing a number of threats including declining profitability and loss of area to other land uses including expansion of the built environment as well as from cropland and forestry. The use of grassland as a natural resource either in terms of existing vegetation and land cover or planting of new species for bioenergy and other nonfood applications presents an opportunity, and potential solution, to maintain the broader ecosystem services that perennial grasslands provide as well as to improve the options for grassland farmers and their communities. This paper brings together different grass or grassland‐based studies and considers them as part of a continuum of strategies that, when also combined with improvements in grassland production systems, will improve the overall efficiency of grasslands as an important natural resource and enable a greater area to be managed, replanted or conserved. These diversification options relate to those most likely to be available to farmers and land owners in the marginally economic or uneconomic grasslands of middle to northern Europe and specifically in the UK. Grasslands represent the predominant global land use and so these strategies are likely to be relevant to other areas although the grass species used may vary. The options covered include the use of biomass derived from the management of grasses in the urban and semi urban environment, semi‐natural grassland systems as part of ecosystem management, pasture in addition to livestock production, and the planting and cropping of dedicated energy grasses. The adoption of such approaches would not only increase income from economically marginal grasslands, but would also mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from livestock production and help fund conservation of these valuable grassland ecosystems and landscapes, which is increasingly becoming a challenge.

中文翻译：

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多样化和利用生物能源维持未来的草原。

草原农业正面临许多威胁，包括盈利能力下降和其他土地用途的面积减少，包括建筑环境的扩张以及农田和林业的扩张。就现有植被和土地覆盖而言，将草地用作自然资源，或为生物能源和其他非粮食用途种植新物种，都将为保持多年生草地提供的更广泛的生态系统服务以及为之提供的机会和潜在解决方案。改善草原农民及其社区的选择。本文将不同的草类研究或基于草地的研究汇总在一起，并将其视为一系列战略的一部分，这些战略还应与草地生产系统的改进相结合，将会提高草原作为重要自然资源的整体效率，并使更大面积的土地得到管理，重新种植或保护。这些多样化的选择与北欧中部边缘经济或不经济草原，特别是英国的农民和土地所有者最有可能使用的选择有关。草原是全球主要的土地利用方式，因此尽管所使用的草种可能有所不同，但这些策略可能与其他地区相关。涵盖的选项包括在城市和半城市环境中使用源自草地管理的生物质，作为生态系统管理一部分的半天然草地系统，除畜牧业以外的牧场以及专用能源草的种植和种植。