Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security: Implications of accelerated expansion of biofuel production

This study has been commissioned to the Land Use Change and Agriculture Program by the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID).

The objective of the study is to assess, for developing countries and in particular for poor rural populations, the various implications of an accelerated increase of biofuel production. Sustainability issues (social, economic, environmental), competition for land and water, food security (price/availability) and biodiversity are amongst the aspects that the study will tackle. It relies on LUC’s analytical tools and quantitative models to support its findings and conclusions. The study has a global scope and will report results by geographical regions for the medium-term (2015-2020), for the long term (2030) and for the very long-term (2050). The study has four parts:

• Primer on biofuels: An overview of various types of biofuels with their associated feedstocks and conversion technologies
• Biofuel and feedstock markets: Current supply and demand; feedstock and biofuel prices; estimated future demand for transport fuels.
• Main players and their strategies: Main actors in biofuel development national/regional; biofuel strategies and published targets.
• Policies and international trade rules: Policies and trade rules governing bio-energy feedstocks production and trade.
• Crops and Bio-energy Feedstocks: Current and future bio-energy feedstock potentials.
• Technologies: Yields and conversion technologies.
• Land use: Scenarios of future potentially available land for bio-energy feedstocks.

• Impact on land and water: Trade-offs between bio-energy production and food production — competition for land and water.
• Impact on forest and biodiversity/ecosystems:  Impacts of bio-energy feedstock production on land conversion and biodiversity.
• Impact on green house gases (GHG) emissions: Account of GHG savings and emissions due to fossil fuel substitution, carbon debt due to land conversion, increase of agricultural input use.

• Impact on food prices and rural incomes: Impact of bio-energy production on international food prices, food production and agricultural commodity trade. Challenges and opportunities for small-holder farmers.

• Sustainable pro-poor policies for bio-energy development.

Responsible for this page: Elisabeth Kawczynski
Last updated: 16 Oct 2009