The CFE system is an alley cropping system with food and fodder crops in the alleys and short rotation woody crops (SRWC) as the biomass belts for energy production. It consists of 10.1 ha of food components like spring barley, winter wheat, oat and lucerne/ryegrass as food and fodder components and 0.75 ha of biomass belts consisting of five belts of SRWC, placed at spatial distances of 50, 100, 150, and 200 m within the field. Each biomass belt is 10.7 m wide and consists of five double rows of SRWC. Of the five double rows, three double rows in the middle consists of three willow clones (one double row each) of Salix viminalis (L.) “Jor”, Salix dasycladus Wimmer, and Salix triandra cinerea (L.) bordered by one double row of common hazel Corylus avellana (L.) on one side and one double row of alder (Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertner) on the other side. Each double row is 1.3 m apart, with a planting density of 20,000 trees ha−1 . The SRWC are planted at intra-row spacing of 0.5 m and inter-row distance of 0.7 m. The biomass belts are established at varying distances of 50, 100, 150, and 200 m creating alleys of the equivalent distances to assess the spatial effects of biomass belts on food and fodder components. The biomass belts are harvested and chipped every four years and the wood chips sold to a nearby heat and power station for the production of heat and electricity, while the food and fodder crops grown between the biomass belt and harvested annually.