Most people in rural sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity and rely on traditional, inefficient, and polluting cooking solutions that have adverse impacts on both human health and the environment. Here, we propose a novel integrated agroforestry-bioenergy system that combines sustainable biomass production in sequential agroforestry systems with biomass-based cleaner cooking solutions and rural electricity production in small-scale combined heat and power plants and estimate the biophysical system outcomes. Despite conservative assumptions, we demonstrate that on-farm biomass production can cover the household’s fuelwood demand for cooking and still generate a surplus of woody biomass for electricity production via gasification. Agroforestry and biochar soil amendments should increase agricultural productivity and food security. In addition to enhanced energy security, the proposed system should also contribute to improving cooking conditions and health, enhancing soil fertility and food security, climate change mitigation, gender equality, and rural poverty reduction.

撒哈拉以南非洲农村地区的大多数人无法获得电力，只能依靠传统、低效且污染严重的烹饪解决方案，这对人类健康和环境产生不利影响。在这里，我们提出了一种新型的综合农林业-生物能源系统，该系统将连续农林业系统中的可持续生物质生产与基于生物质的清洁烹饪解决方案和小型热电联产厂中的农村电力生产相结合，并估计生物物理系统的结果。尽管假设保守，我们证明农场生物质生产可以满足家庭做饭的薪材需求，并且仍然可以通过气化产生剩余的木质生物质用于发电。农林业和生物炭土壤改良剂应提高农业生产力和粮食安全。除了加强能源安全外，拟议的系统还应有助于改善烹饪条件和健康、提高土壤肥力和粮食安全、减缓气候变化、性别平等和农村贫困。