Abstract
Growing demand for meat and dairy products (MDP), biofuels, and scarcity of agricultural land are drivers of global land use competition. Impacts of policies targeting demand for MDP or biofuels have only been analysed separately. We use the computable general equilibrium model DART-BIO to investigate combined effects, since MDP and biofuel production are closely related via feestock use and co-production of animal feed. We implement four scenarios: (a) a baseline scenario; (b) halving MDP consumption in industrialised countries by a tax; (c) abolishing current biofuel policies; and (d) no exogenous land use change. We find that a MDP tax and exogenous land use change have larger effects on land use and food markets than biofuel policies. International trade is affected in all scenarios. With respect to combined effects of a MDP tax and biofuel policies, we find decreasing biodiesel but increasing bioethanol production. In addition, the MDP tax decreases the impact of biofuel policies on agricultural markets and land use. Our results highlight the importance of a detailed representation of different vegetable oils used in biodiesel production and related by-products. Finally, since the MDP tax increases the use of fossil fuels, the net climate mitigation potentials of such a tax should be investigated further.
Highlights
Under the current trends of global change, one of the key challenges is to deal with the rising competition for productive land resources [1,2]
With this scenario we aim to analyse the interplay of biofuels and livestock production, since by-products of biofuel production are used as fodder in livestock production
Note that we compare this scenario to the meat and dairy products (MDP) tax scenario, not to the Baseline scenario, in order to analyse the additional effect of no biofuel policies with the MDP tax in place
Summary
Under the current trends of global change, one of the key challenges is to deal with the rising competition for productive land resources [1,2]. A major driver of these trends is the combination of population growth, rising per capita incomes, and progressive urbanisation. This has triggered an unprecedented increase in demand for meat and dairy products (MDP) in developing countries, in Asia [3]. This development gives rise to major opportunities and threats for mankind [3,4,5,6]. For an evaluation of related policy measures such as biofuel quotas, instruments to decrease MDP consumption or avoiding cropland expansion it is key to understand the interconnected processes of these instruments, their impact on the scarce land resources as well as their impact on agricultural markets
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