Biofuels: steer clear of degraded land

Ecology and Society, 2011

Ecology and Society, 2011

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2017

The post-2015 sustainable development goals (SDGs) aim to strengthen the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). There are 17 SDGs, the first two tackle ending poverty and hunger as well as food insecurity, under nutrition and sustainable agriculture. To address these goals requires eradicating chronic hunger. This paper examines challenges associated with biofuel production and how they relate to SDGs and their targets. We mainly focus on challenges associated with biofuel production not adequately addressed in the SDGs. It draws from a range of peer reviewed and grey literature to advance the understanding of how biofuel production will impact the post-2015 development agenda. The findings suggest that increasing use of food crops to produce biofuels in the United States, European Union, Japan and Brazil has been one important element in explaining the steady rise in staple food prices since 2000. While this is a potential threat to food and nutrition security in low and middle-income countries, biofuel production also offers significant opportunities in low income countries. There are several challenges to the development and harnessing of biofuels, these include 1) the interaction between biofuel production and climate change; 2) biofuel production and foreignisation of land; 3) food wastage; 4) poor governance and limited production capacity; 5) biofuel production within a weak and fragmented policy framework; 6) biofuel production, land tenure, and socioeconomic impacts; 7) biofuel production and conflicts; and 8) biofuel production and deforestation. For the post-2015 sustainable development agenda to have an impact, strong actions are required to protect rural communities as well as nurture the biofuels industry. This should be matched by commensurate investments in food and nutrition security, and transparent public-private partnerships. This calls for strong and pro-poor policies on feedstock farming, processing and trading. Such policies must address the rhetoric of stakeholder participation in land use management.

2008

This paper examines the demonization of biofuels in relation to food security and assess whether or not the negativity towards biofuels is justified. We first examine the concept of food security which has been a concern long before the emergence of biofuels. We show that creating food security is more than producing a 'sufficient' volume of food instead that it depends on complex, context dependent, social, economic, political and ecological factors in which growing biofuels. Indeed biofuels is only one of the influencing factors. We would suggest that too much focus on growing biofuels as the identified problem detracts from the underlying causes of food insecurity and hunger.

Biofuels are receiving growing negative attention. Direct and/or indirect land-use changes that result from their cultivation can cause emissions due to carbon losses in soils and biomass and could negate any eventual greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction benefit. This study evaluates the implications of land-use change emission on the climate-change mitigation potential of different biofuel production systems. Much of this recent land use change is occurring in developing countries where large agro-ecologically suitable tracts of land may be accessed at lower economic and opportunity cost. This is leading to the gradual penetration of commercial crops that provide suitable biofuel feedstocks (e.g., sugarcane, soybean, oil palm, jatropha) into rural communities and forested landscapes throughout many areas of the world. While biofuel feedstocks are expanding through large industrial-scale plantations and smallholder production alike, the expansion of industrial-scale production systems has been countered by a critical response by civil society actors concerned about the implications for rural livelihoods, customary land rights, and the environmental effects of biofuel feedstock cultivation. To date, however, limited data exist to demonstrate the conditions under which widely -1 -anticipated economic and climate change mitigation benefits accrue in practice, and the implications of these developments for forests, local livelihoods, and the climate change mitigation potential of biofuels. In such a situation, debates are easily polarized into those for and against biofuels. This special issue seeks to nuance this debate by shedding light on the local social and environmental impacts accruing to date from the expansion of biofuel feedstock cultivation. -2 --19 -

International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, 2011

Natural Resources Forum, 2009

The Natural Resources Forum is running a special series over the 2007-2009 period on themes to be considered by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development in its 16 th and 17 th sessions: Africa, agriculture, desertification, drought, land and rural development. The Viewpoints in this issue will focus on the impact of growing demand for biofuels on food security. Experts address the question: "Can the growing demand for biofuels be met without threatening food security?" Biofuels and food security: It all depends.n arf_1220 171..173 The production of biofuels involves too many variables to contain under a single umbrella term. Different feed stocks, objectives, marketing, required inputs, economics, and numerous other variables make any generalisations difficult. If the focus is on food security, then biofuels should be confined to providing local needs for energy that will enable greater food productivity. This might include growing biodiesel crops in parts of the landscape that are not being used for food crops, and locally processing the biodiesel to provide fuel for the agricultural machinery that enhances productivity and labour efficiency. Including some biofuel crops as part of diverse farming systems can help the rural poor to diversify their sources of income, thereby contributing to their food security. This requires specific government policies designed to ensure that the flow of benefits from biofuels is directed specifically at the rural poor. We should also be looking ahead to more advanced technologies that will be able to produce biofuels without compromising food production. Some of these may involve technologies that are readily available to the rural poor. Replacing firewood and charcoal with more modern and efficient forms of biofuel may provide health benefits as well as improved food security. In short, biofuels definitely have the potential to enhance food security, but only if their production is specifically designed with this objective in mind.

Ecology and Society, 2011

Preoccupation with global energy supplies and climate change in the global North, and a desire to improve the balance of trade and capture value in the emerging carbon market by developing countries, together place biofuels firmly on the map of global land use change. Much of this recent land use change is occurring in developing countries where large agro-ecologically suitable tracts of land may be accessed at lower economic and opportunity cost. This is leading to the gradual penetration of commercial crops that provide suitable biofuel feedstocks (e.g., sugarcane, soybean, oil palm, jatropha) into rural communities and forested landscapes throughout many areas of the global South. Expansion of biofuel feedstock cultivation in developing countries is widely embraced by producer country governments as a means to achieve energy security and stimulate rural economic development through employment and smallholder market integration. It is also expected that foreign and domestic investments in biofuel feedstock cultivation will lead to positive economic spillovers from knowledge transfer and investor contributions to social and physical infrastructure. While biofuel feedstocks are expanding through large industrial-scale plantations and smallholder production alike, the expansion of industrial-scale production systems has been countered by a critical response by civil society actors concerned about the implications for rural livelihoods, customary land rights, and the environmental effects of biofuel feedstock cultivation. To date, however, limited data exist to demonstrate the conditions under which widely anticipated economic and climate change mitigation benefits accrue in practice, and the implications of these developments for forests, local livelihoods, and the climate change mitigation potential of biofuels. In such a situation, debates are easily polarized into those for and against biofuels. This special issue seeks to nuance this debate by shedding light on the local social and environmental impacts accruing to date from the expansion of biofuel feedstock cultivation through in-depth case studies in 6 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Findings provide a more nuanced picture of costs and benefits, and point to a host of risks that need to be proactively managed to leverage the potential of the industry as an engine of national social and economic development.

Geography Compass, 2013

Since the turn of the century, biofuels have been promoted not only for their potential to mitigate climate change and address energy security, but also for the potential benefits to socio-ecological systems. However, the purported benefits were almost immediately called into question as evidence began to emerge of the potential negative consequences of biofuel production. Recent debates have highlighted the social impacts, particularly land access and food security, yet much of the academic literature on these social impacts remains high-level. This paper identifies peer-reviewed literature that documents the social impacts of biofuel expansion at the local (household and community) scale. A systematic review identified just 17 research papers that presented evidence of the local livelihood impacts of biofuel production and processing. Three issues emerge from the review as especially important at the local level: household economics, food security, and ecosystem services. Within the research there is a bias towards the cultivation of Jatropha curcas in particular geographies (Africa and Asia). The evidence also shows that the costs and benefits are unevenly distributed within and between communities, with consequences for the ways in which social, economic and environmental impacts are experienced. We conclude by arguing that more evidence on the impacts of biofuels at the local level is desperately needed in order to demystify this complex issue and stimulate a more nuanced understanding of the winners and losers of this commodity.