Biofuels Boom Research Articles

Biofuel impact on food prices index and land use change

Food price and land use data over an extended time period have been examined to identify possible correlations between biofuel production and food price or land use changes. We compared the food price index before and after the biofuel boom in the 2000s to evaluate biofuel's impact on the inflation rate. We found that the U.S. food price inflation rate since 1973 could be divided into three distinct regions. The inflation rate was lowest at 2.6% during 1991–2016, which encompasses the biofuel boom. Among many factors, continuously rising food production per capita was identified as the likely cause of low food price inflation during this period. The US exports of corn have not declined since the 1990s and soybean exports are rising at a steady rate. Among several variables tested as a cause of food price index increase, crude oil price had the highest correlation. We also manually verified the automated land use classification of satellite image covering 664 km2 in three selected areas in the US. We found that 10.90% of non-agricultural land was misclassified as agriculture, whereas only 2.23% of agricultural land was misclassified as non-agricultural. The automated classification showed an 8.53% increase in agricultural land from 2011 to 2015, while the manual classification showed only 0.31% (±1.92%) increase. This result was within the margin of error alluding to no significant land use change. We concluded that automated satellite image land use classification should be verified more rigorously to be used for land use change analysis.

Understanding the expansion of energy crops beyond the global biofuel boom: evidence from oil palm expansion in Colombia

BackgroundThe global palm oil market experienced a remarkable boom since the year 2000. Since palm oil can be used for biodiesel production, the global expansion of oil palm cultivation has been associated with the global biofuel boom. Biofuel policies—especially those adopted in the European Union (EU)—have been blamed for the socio-environmental impacts of oil palm expansion. We explore how the global biofuel boom interacts with national geographies and social-economic and political processes to produce country-specific trajectories of biofuel crops expansion. We analyse the expansion of oil palm cultivation in Colombia between 2000 and 2010 from a political ecology perspective.MethodsThe analysis is based on a framework that positions expansion of commodity frontiers within the ‘space-of-flows’ and the ‘space-of-place’. Through this approach, we identify the markets and geographies that define the country-specific trajectories of expansion of oil palm in Colombia, and their connections with general patterns of land control. The empirical analysis is based on primary data collected during fieldwork, and on an extensive review of secondary data about the palm oil sector and the socio-environmental effects of oil palm expansion in the country.ResultsThe contemporary oil palm expansion in Colombia was not specifically influenced by the international biofuel market. Expansion was characterized by an increasing production of palm oil for biodiesel, to supply a policy-driven national biofuel market controlled by national palm oil producers. The evidence shows that this oil palm expansion proceeded through a variety of land control practices that constitute forms of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ and ‘assimilation’. These are embedded in contextual factors that include the agrarian history of Colombia, the armed conflict, and government policies.ConclusionsOur study shows that the ways in which expansion of biofuel crops unfold in each producing country depend not only on the global biofuel market. They are also shaped by the country-specific geographies and political economies. Therefore, research and policies on the global expansion of energy crops should account for the complex and interrelated factors that mediate the specific ways in which the global demand for biofuels creates biofuel crop booms at country level.

“Unbundling” the biofuel promise: Querying the ability of liquid biofuels to deliver on socio-economic policy expectations

While excitement around biofuels initially focused on finding a clean and secure alternative to fossil fuels, many other expectations have subsequently been attached to the “biofuel boom.” Biofuels are not only expected to mitigate climate change or foster domestic energy security, but also to generate employment, provide opportunities to smallholders and support decentralized energy systems. This paper interrogates the expectations attached to biofuels. We begin by examining how policies in consumer and producer countries articulate a series of expectations for biofuels that are “bundled” with the promise of cleaner energy, using the rationales behind these expectations to derive criteria for success. We then review evidence from the published literature on biofuel outcomes against these criteria to assess whether the most prevalent assumptions have been met. We find that policy expectations for biofuels are often expressed in narrow terms, failing to capture important potential impacts – for example focusing on new jobs in the formal sector rather than job quality or whether employment offsets livelihood costs associated with biofuel investments. Some expectations have proven elusive irrespective of the metrics employed, for example using biofuels to improve energy access in remote rural areas. The paper concludes by discussing implications for policy and practice.

Corn Area Response to Local Ethanol Markets in the United States: A Grid Cell Level Analysis

We measure corn and total agricultural area response to the biofuels boom in the United States from 2006 to 2010. Specifically, we use newly available micro‐scale grid cell data to test whether a location's corn and total agricultural cultivation rose in response to the capacity of ethanol refineries in their vicinity. Based on these data, acreage in corn and overall agriculture not only grew in already‐cultivated areas but also expanded into previously uncultivated areas. Acreage in corn and total agriculture also correlated with proximity to ethanol plants, though the relationship dampened over the time period. A formal estimation of the link between acreage and ethanol refineries, however, must account for the endogenous location decisions of ethanol plants and areas of corn supply. We present historical evidence to support the use of the US railroad network as a valid instrument for ethanol plant locations. Our estimates show that a location's neighborhood refining capacity exerts strong and significant effects on acreage planted in corn and total agricultural acreage. The largest impacts of ethanol plants were felt in locations where cultivation area was relatively low. This high‐resolution evidence of ethanol impacts on local agricultural outcomes can inform researchers and policy‐makers concerned with crop diversity, environmental sustainability, and rural economic development.

Cropland expansion outpaces agricultural and biofuel policies in the United States

Cultivation of corn and soybeans in the United States reached record high levels following the biofuels boom of the late 2000s. Debate exists about whether the expansion of these crops caused conversion of grasslands and other carbon-rich ecosystems to cropland or instead replaced other crops on existing agricultural land. We tracked crop-specific expansion pathways across the conterminous US and identified the types, amount, and locations of all land converted to and from cropland, 2008–2012. We found that crop expansion resulted in substantial transformation of the landscape, including conversion of long-term unimproved grasslands and land that had not been previously used for agriculture (cropland or pasture) dating back to at least the early 1970s. Corn was the most common crop planted directly on new land, as well as the largest indirect contributor to change through its displacement of other crops. Cropland expansion occurred most rapidly on land that is less suitable for cultivation, raising concerns about adverse environmental and economic costs of conversion. Our results reveal opportunities to increase the efficacy of current federal policy conservation measures by modifying coverage of the 2014 US Farm Bill Sodsaver provision and improving enforcement of the US Renewable Fuels Standard.

Measuring the efficiency of the Farm Credit System

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop information on the relative efficiency of Farm Credit System (FCS) lenders. Also the evolution of relative efficiency is examined as influenced by the biofuel boom, the financial crisis, and farm income increases. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – A stochastic frontier production function is used to estimate technical efficiency of FCS banks and associations. Findings – A significant difference is found in efficiency between large and small associations and banks. Larger asset bases and management compensation are found to be positively associated with efficiency. Banks are found to have higher technical efficiency than associations (66-46 percent). Association efficiency is found to be increasing indicating likely effects of recent consolidation. The financial crisis was not found to have a significant effect with the bioenergy and farm income booms being likely countervailing forces. Research limitations/implications – Further work is needed on the impact of the biofuel boom, increases in farm income, and new regulations. Practical implications – The study provides information and indications of strategies for FCS management including additional consolidation. Originality/value – This does an updated assessment of FCS efficiency taking into account changes in consolidation, lending practices, and economic conditions. Implications are developed for management actions such as more consolidation. The study also uses a more advanced methodology compared to older studies.

The Coal‐Corn Divide: Colliding Treadmills in Rural Community Energy Development

AbstractThe emergence of concerns about “peak oil,” the fallout from the Iraq War in terms of renewed calls for “energy security,” and the development of new technology to gain access to fossil fuels and gas long off‐limits because of economic and environmental concerns has led to a boom of multiple kinds of energy development in and around rural communities in the United States. This article uses the lens of treadmill‐of‐production and growth‐machine literature to understand these developments in south central Illinois, an area with rich farmland and a history of underground coal extraction. While this analysis finds the expected support from community elites for renewed coal extraction, despite health and environmental risks, we find that the farm community, concerned about damage to land critical for producing corn and beans, profitable at historical levels in part because of the biofuel boom, formed a strong opposition movement. In short, we find evidence of colliding treadmills of energy production. The findings have implications for the analysis of rural energy production in the United States and beyond.

Food Price Inflation as Redistribution: Towards a New Analysis of Corporate Power in the World Food System

This paper outlines the contours of a new research agenda for the analysis of food price crises. By weaving together a detailed quantitative examination of changes in corporate profit shares with a qualitative appraisal of the restructuring in business control over the organisation of society and nature, the paper points to the rapid ascendance of a new power configuration in the global political economy of food: the Agro-Trader nexus. The agribusiness and grain trader firms that belong to the Agro-Trader nexus have not been mere ‘price takers’, instead they have actively contributed to the inflationary restructuring of the world food system by championing and facilitating the rapid expansion of the first-generation biofuels sector. As a key driver of agricultural commodity price rises, the biofuels boom has raised the Agro-Trader nexus's differential profits and it has at the same time deepened global hunger. These findings suggest that food price inflation is a mechanism of redistribution.

Revising the potential of large-scale Jatropha oil production in Tanzania: An economic land evaluation assessment

Following up the rather sobering results of the biofuels boom in Tanzania, we analyze the preconditions that would make large-scale oil production from the feedstock Jatropha curcas viable. We do this by employing an economic land evaluation approach; first, we estimate the physical land suitability and the necessary inputs to reach certain amounts of yields. Subsequently, we estimate costs and benefits for different input-output levels. Finally, to incorporate the increased awareness of sustainability in the export sector, we introduce also certification criteria. Using data from an experimental farm in Kilosa, we find that high yields are crucial for the economic feasibility and that they can only be obtained on good soils at high input rates. Costs of compliance with certification criteria depend on site specific characteristics such as land suitability and precipitation. In general, both domestic production and (certified) exports are too expensive to be able to compete with conventional diesel/rapeseed oil from the EU. Even though the crop may have potential for large scale production as a niche product, there is still a lot of risk involved and more experimental research is needed.

Harmonic amplitude-terms mask to highlight agriculture in the savanna domain below the Brazilian Amazonian frontier

In the present decade, agricultural monitoring has increased in importance world-wide mainly due to sensitive matters, such as the current food crises, bio-fuels boom and the land-use/land-cover (LULC) changes from savanna (Brazilian Cerrados) and forest areas to agricultural expansion. In this complex context there is a requirement for quick and operational procedures to monitor change. We propose a simple but effective technique to mask out and identify annual crop areas (e.g. soybean) in the Brazilian Amazonian frontier using lower-order terms from a harmonic analysis approach derived by the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. Preliminary results highlighted how annual crop areas and planted pasture from other vegetal units are easily separated using threshold slicing to generate a binary-mask of annual crops. Comparison with the reference map reached an overall accuracy of 91.89%, with overall kappa statistics of 0.8238.

Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia: At Risk of Disappearing as Distinct Peoples in the Rush for Biofuel?

AbstractThe use of biofuel to power transport vehicles has attracted considerable interest and expectation during the last decade. Biofuel is expected to contribute solutions to a range of problems, including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the provision of a renewable and therefore sustainable energy source, and an increase in income from agriculture. However, concerns regarding the consequences of its production have also emerged, and claims have been made that its benefits are exaggerated. This article focuses on Indonesia, where vast quantities of land have been converted into plantations in anticipation of the biofuel boom. The article discusses the expected benefits to Indonesia, and the framework the government has put in place to encourage and promote biofuel production. However, in spite of its promises, to date any such benefits have been far outweighed by the harmful consequences of current methods of plantation and production. The article examines these consequences, with a particular focus on the effect on indigenous communities. It concludes that the current method of biofuel plantation in Indonesia is unsustainable, and observes that it may in fact be placing indigenous communities “on the verge of completely losing their traditional territories and thus of disappearing as distinct peoples”.

World Food Day: 16 October 2008

World Day highlights the human right of each person to food and provides a platform to increase awareness of the plight of the 850 million malnourished people around the world, most of whom live in developing countries and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Due to global warming and the bio-fuel boom, this number may even increase in the near future. Stemming from such information the aptly chosen theme for World Day 2008 was Food security: the challenge of climate change and bio-energy.

(Bio)fueling farm policy: the biofuels boom and the 2008 farm bill

In the mid-2000s, rising gas prices, political instability, pollution, and fossil fuel depletion brought renewable domestic energy production onto the policy agenda. Biofuels, or fuels made from plant materials, came to be seen as America’s hope for energy security, environmental conservation, and rural economic revitalization. Yet even as the actual environmental, economic, and energy contributions of a biofuels boom remained debatable, support for biofuels swelled and became a prominent driver of not only US energy policy but of US farm policy as well. This paper asks why biofuels became such a powerful force in farm policy debates, and draws on policy windows theory and discourse analysis to analyze biofuels’ contributions to the passage of the 2008 farm bill. It finds that budgetary and political factors combined with a particular set of patriotic biofuels-oriented discourses to carry energy policy debates into farm policy. It also comments on the implications of biofuels policies for conservation and sustainable land use in 2008 and beyond.

The legitimacy of biofuel certification

The biofuel boom is placing enormous demands on existing cropping systems, with the most crucial consequences in the agri-food sector. The biofuel industry is responding by initiating private governance and certification. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and the Cramer Commission, among others, have formulated criteria on “sustainable” biofuel production and processing. This article explores the legitimacy of private governance and certification by the biofuel industry, highlighting opportunities and challenges. It argues that the concept of output based legitimacy is problematic in the case of biofuel as long as no consensus or commonly agreed “best” solution has been established on what sustainable biofuel production is. Furthermore, it shows that the private governance initiatives analyzed fail to adequately include actors from developing countries. Finally, the article argues that we need mechanisms for control and accountability in order to guarantee that the political output of biofuel certification serves the common welfare.

Impacts of a United States’ biofuel policy on New Zealand's agricultural sector

The rise in oil prices has spurred interest in biofuels. Policies in the United States like the renewable fuel standard (RFS) have led to an expansion of ethanol production, while the New Zealand government has mandated a minimum level of biofuel sales. The research used a partial equilibrium model of international trade to quantify the price and farmgate income effects of the US RFS policy. The goal was to examine the competition between food and biofuel production and to quantify the impact of the policy on the agricultural sector in New Zealand. The RFS policy has a significant impact on corn prices, but a small effect on livestock prices and production. There thus appears to be little conflict between food and fuel uses for corn at the level of the RFS mandate. New Zealand's pasture-based livestock sector benefits from the use of corn for ethanol production: it receives better prices for its products, but does not face the same input cost increases as competitors. The results suggest that New Zealand faces an interesting decision: it could support investment in biofuels research, or benefit from the biofuels boom through the indirect impacts on demand and prices for meat and milk.

Invasion Biologists and the Biofuels Boom: Cassandras or Colleagues

Abstract Modern invasion biology is a new science, with the holy grail of being able to predict the trajectory of particular invasions. Although this goal has yet to be achieved, there has been much progress through experimental research and meticulous study of the scope and mechanisms of existing invasions. Several well-established patterns are relevant to potential biofuel feedstocks: (1) ca. half of all damaging plant invaders were deliberately introduced, not accidental hitchhikers or escapees; (2) some native plants have become invasive; coevolution with native community members was not proof against unexpected damage; (3) many introduced plants were innocuous for decades or even centuries in their new locations before suddenly exploding across the landscape; lack of current observed impact does not guarantee safety; and (4) control or even eradication of widespread invaders is sometimes possible, but it is far from certain and it is often very expensive. We cannot count on effectively managing an in...

The US Ethanol and Biofuels Boom: Its Origins, Current Status, and Future Prospects

ABSTRACT This article explains why we are experiencing a boom in ethanol and other biofuels, the current status of biofuels, and prospects for the future under different policy regimes. I argue that today's boom is in a sense an unintended consequence of a fixed ethanol subsidy that was keyed to $20-per-barrel crude oil, combined with a surge in crude oil prices—initially to $60 per barrel, and later doubling to $120 per barrel. Future prospects for corn ethanol depend on the crude oil price, the price of corn and distillers' grains, the market value of ethanol, plant capital and operating costs, and federal ethanol and biofuels policies. I examine the impacts of a wide range of policies for subsidies and renewable fuels standards. Policy choices will be absolutely critical in determining the extent to which biofuels targets are achieved and at what cost. However, if the price of oil remains above $100 per barrel, biofuels will continue to be produced even without government interventions.

Biomass with capture: negative emissions within social and environmental constraints: an editorial comment

Biomass has long been investigated both as a (nearly) CO2 neutral substitute for fossil fuels and as a means for sequestering carbon in terrestrial ecosystems (Kheshgi et al. 2000). More recently, the potential to integrate carbon capture and storage technologies (“CCS”)— conceived to enable fossil fuel use without atmospheric CO2 emissions—with bio-energy systems has emerged as a means to capture atmospheric carbon, fixed through photosynthesis, and sequester it from the atmosphere for geologic timescales (Obersteiner et al. 2001; Yamashita and Barreto 2004; Mollersten et al. 2003; Rhodes and Keith 2005). The ability of such integrated systems to produce energy products with negative net atmospheric carbon emissions could have important implications for mitigating anthropogenic climate change. The scale and timing of biomass-based mitigation is limited by the availability and cost of conversion technologies, many of which are currently inefficient or technologically immature. More fundamentally, it is limited by feasible scales of biomass production, estimates of which are highly uncertain and indicate that the capacities envisioned within aggressive proposals, including those by Read (2008), may not be achievable (Hoogwijk et al. 2003; Berndes et al. 2003). Concern for environmental, social, and economic impacts of biomass development may further constrain production below technically feasible levels. The current biofuels boom may be illustrative in this context. On the one hand, it demonstrates the feasibility of rapid, large-scale bio-energy deployments; while on the other hand, it provides examples of undesirable environmental and social consequences from large-scale biomass production (Ziegler 2007; Rosenthal 2007a, b). Climatic Change (2008) 87:321–328 DOI 10.1007/s10584-007-9387-4

An Institutional Framework for a More Efficient Use of Natural Resources

The importance of natural resources is recognized by its constitutional protection. A strategy to lower the impact of availability and cost of materials will have positive externalities, lessening exporting jobs abroad. A robust policy framework will improve eco‐efficient resource use and promote sustainable production and consumption. An Institutional Framework for Resource Management incorporating an international panel, would help to decouple natural resources use from its environmental impacts, monitor global material and energy flows balance and guide the design of policies and measures. Additionally, it would coordinate constituencies and generate information and knowledge, within the framework of existing environmental institutionalism. Humans change ecosystems to meet their respective needs. Their unfathomable ingenuity and drive needs a strong legal framework to provide order and deter predatory free market practices, thus limiting environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources throughout the global economy. The world economy is based on abundant fossil fuels reserves, and their use as fuels to supply energy and transport have the undesirable side‐effects of air pollution and global warming. Energy consumption is likely to expand with economic growth and prosperity; ‘business as usual’ needs to be checked with innovation playing a crucial role in reducing CO2 emissions and creating alternatives to satisfy societal needs, but also in devising new laws. Market enthusiasm alone without strong guidance could lead to disorder, like the optimistic biofuels boom, compared with a more organized and orderly evolution provided by laws such as the German feed‐in law or Danish container law. Better organization based on a robust legal framework, innovation, information and incentives, within a market context, will create conditions to develop core competences and attitudes for achieving efficiency. Incentives, economic and fiscal, will help counterbalance the increasing importance of gas and coal and promote life cycle thinking, ecoefficiency and ecoplanning of cities. While the paper gives an overview of these aspects, the main thesis of this paper is as follows: Raw materials supply could be secured by forging strategic alliances with reserve rich stable countries like Peru with 12 metals exhibiting 10 decades of constant growth. Methodologically, this paper follows the New Institutional Economics. The paper outlines a few suggestions for an international institutional arrangement. It is neither an ex‐post analysis of international regimes nor does it contain a modelling of players involved.

Will the current biofuels boom go bust?

Will the current biofuels boom go bust?