In Italy the debate on the potential of biomass energy resources and the first hypothesis on their use for this purpose are developed in the late Nineties, mainly in response to the guidelines set out in the Kyoto Protocol. In order to estimate the potential contribution of agriculture to energy needs, the paper analyses the structure and organization of the Energy Action Plan of the different Italian regions, with particular attention to forecasts of supply of energy from biomass in the area with a necessary rescheduling of investments between food and no-food crops.
