Posts filed under ‘Background Paper for food energy nexus project’
A Background to the Food Energy Nexus Project
The demand for energy, globally, is expected to increase by 50% by 2030 with a 40% increase in oil. Many governments across the globe are developing policies to shift national dependence from oil to alternative sources of energy and thereby meet climate change obligations.
A strong candidate for petrochemical alternatives is biofuels. Over recent years biofuels has become part of climate change mitigation strategies and are featured in CDM initiatives to stimulate carbon friendly fuel in developing countries. Importantly, biofuels also promise nation states with energy security. Due to the great potential of biofuels over 20 national governments have pledged increases in production and consumption, which is now serviced by a billion dollar industry influenced by crude oil prices.
Biofuels production is predicted to increase to 140 million tonnes by 2030, which equates to an additional 35 million hectares of land (Right and Resource 2008). The EU and US are the main drivers of the increased biofuel demands. Joined by China, India and Brazil who are increasing their own capacity to produce biofuels to meet growing internal energy demands. In sum, biofuels production, research and development are likely to grow over the next decade.
Currently biofuels account for 1% of agricultural land sector. However with rising demands for biofuels it is plausible that the agricultural land use will change significantly (Bailey, 2008). Global demands for food is expected to double by 2010, palm oil by two fold and a 50% increase in meat production. Consequently, a growing demand for food and energy will create substantial capital, speculation and investment for land across the globe.
The potential land use changes have subsequently stimulated speculation in land prices in areas where biofuels could be harvested. A recent report has described this process as the last global land grab (Right and Resource, 2008). Minority groups such as indigenous people and the poor (mainly women) at a global level are often political marginalised and hence are vulnerable to being displaced from their land by large-scale development projects (Lohmann, 1999). Therefore, it is plausible that biofuels production could displace political marginalised groups from their lands. In fact, the UN estimates that 60 million indigenous people may be driven off their land to service the biofuels demand.
The demand for land is typified by recent foreign investment in developing countries. A Chinese company has invested 1 billion US dollars to develop 3 million hectares of biofuel plantation in the Democratic Region of Congo. A Swedish company is in the process of acquiring 400,000 hectares of land for biofuels in Mozambique and Tazinaia and a German company is investing in 13,000 hectares of land for biofuels in Ethiopia (Right and Resource 2008).
Current evidence generated by NGOs, World Bank, IMF and academia indicates concerns round the convergence of food and energy. The World Bank highlighted that the price of food has increased by 83% in the last 3 years. The international Food Policy Research Institute indicated that biofuels account for a 30% increase of the recent food price increase (Lawson, 2008). The IMF deduced that 50% increase in major food crops is attributed to the rapid increase in the use of US corn for biofuels (Lawson, 2008).
The world’s poor spend 50-80 % of their income on purchasing food and the livelihoods of 290 million people will be directly threatened by the current food price situation. Alarmingly, the World Bank estimates that 100 million people have already fallen into poverty as a direct result of the current food price increase. Oxfam has raised concerns that increased demands for biofuels could render poor people vulnerable to food supply changes a result of biofuels demands. Hence, biofuels could deepen poverty and delay the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals. In response some social justice activists such as George Monbiot and Greenpeace have hence called for a ‘first generation’ Biofuels freeze.
Oxfam however, do see potential opportunities in biofuels for developing countries, providing countries apply caution. In particular if biofuels are going to be pursed then:
• Prioritise bioenergy project that provide clean renewable energy sources to poor men and women in rural areas.
• Consider the cost as well as the benefits involved in biofuel strategies: the financial cost of support, the opportunity costs of alternative agriculture and poverty reduction strategies, and social and environmental costs.
• Provide smallholders in their value chain sufficient freedom of choice in their farming decisions to ensure food security for them and their families
Biofuel in India – setting the context
India’s economic boom has largely been uneven, with some enjoying economic prosperity while many remain in abject poverty. For example 47% of children in India are malnourished; India still has the largest number of poor people in a single country; and a 40% illiteracy rate with women, tribal (advasi) and low castes particularly affected. The majority of India’s poor live in rural areas and the agricultural industry lags behind the urban economic boom.
Since Ghandi’s attentions to villages during the independence movement, rural India is has remained a primary concern for the government. The 90’s asymmetrical economic boom has produced economic growth in urban areas but not in rural settings. Furthermore, India’s government is obliged to service the National Rural Employment Scheme for each household in rural India. A rural biofuels industry offers one possible solution. It is purported that biofuels could stimulate private and pubic investment in rural areas, improve the diversification of agriculture, generate additional employment and income for farmers and for landless people, and improve the productivity of waste land not used for agriculture (Altenburg et al., 2008).
India’s National Biofuel Strategy projects a 20% in biofuels use by 2017. Biofuel production will be encouraged in community/government forest wasteland and discouraged on fertile agricultural land. To stimulate growth in the sector the government has wavered tax on biofuels and perhaps, demonstrates the commitment to the industry. Furthermore, it is envisioned that biofuels will also provide, importantly, electrification to many poor rural areas.
The two forerunner candidates for biofuel production in India are jatropha and pongamia. India, currently, has considerable wastelands, for example, 553,000Km2 and 108,000 Km2 of degraded forests. Interestingly, as jatorpha is drought resistant and pongamia a non-toxic leguminous tree that fixes nitrogen in the soil, biofuels could contribute to the rehabilitation of degraded land.
However, the very notion of wasteland in India is a contested term. The forests of India are governed by the Indian Forest Service (IFS), which developed from the first Indian Forest Act in 1865 during the British Raj; this act allowed the government to declare forests and benap (unmeasured land) as reserved forests. This act also marked the beginning of ‘expert’ scientific management of forestlands and hence the wasteland is a label with origins in colonialism and science that actively excluded indigenous knowledge’s when characterising wastelands (Shiva, 2005).
Interestingly, many wasteland in India correlate with high advasi demographics and provides further cautions raised by the UN estimates that indigenous people are at risk of being displaced by the biofuels industry. In fact, two NGOs in India, have specifically raised concerns around wastelands and biofuels production in relations to advasi communities. The Indian state Andhra Pradesh (population 77 million) is home to what is locally known as a ‘tribal belt’ of predominantly indigenous peoples inhabiting its mountainous and largely wooded regions, a ideal landscape for biofuel production.
To date, there is very little participatory projects that assess the issues of biofuels, advasi people and land use. Therefore this project will redress the lack of participatory projects on this important topic and will also serve as a unique case study in assessing climate change strategies in relation to rights to food, indigenous people and biofuels and thereby addressing the convergence of food, energy, climate change and land use.
Food Energy Nexus 