The Impact of Agrofuels

Camila Moreno

27/07/2008

Opinión

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According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), a total of 14 millions of hectares are currently used for the production of agrofuels, which amounts to “only 1% of the cultivable agricultural land worldwide”. However, the same FAO estimates that between 2.5% to 3.8% of the agricultural land at disposition “may be used” for agrofuels in 2030, leading to about 20% of all agricultural land on the planet until 2050, as the end of the era of petroleum is getting closer.

However, the “potentially cultivable” agricultural land is a very distinct category to the land “currently under agricultural production”, provided with an infrastructure that makes production feasible and flow. It is on this land where agrofuels are actually competing with food, and it is this soil, usually closer to urban centres, which are supposed to guarantee the local supply with abundant, healthy and cheap food.

Currently, the main biomass sources for industrial agrofuels production are: corn for ethanol (in the United States) and sugar cane (in

Brazil

), and for biodiesel soy, rape and African palm. In addition to these main products in terms of production area and volume, there is also an, infinitely minor, production based on jatropha (pine kernel), papaya (castor seed) and others.

Main Cause of Hunger

The use of grains for the production of agrofuels has been identified as the main direct cause of the rise in food prices (1). Social movements, non-governmental organizations and activists all over the world uphold this argument, as well as several international agencies who, even though they disagree about the estimated extent of the impact, seem to share the view that the central responsibility of agrofuels in the food crisis weighs heavy.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2008-2017, agrofuels account for about 1/3 (one third) of the expected rise of prices for grains and vegetable oils in this period. The report estimates that the prices of vegetable oils will remain high, 80% above the average of the 1998-2007 period; corn, wheat and milk powder will be between 40% and 60% more expensive; sugar 30% more expensive; and beef and pork about 20%. Reasons for these unprecedented rises, which add to the averages foreseen for the next decade, include the doubling of the current agrofuel production, high prices of agrofuels, increasing costs of food production and transport, and a higher demand for food and animal fodder in developing countries. (2)

By contrast, the most extreme analysis of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that agrofuel production corresponded to almost half of the increase in the consumption of main agricultural food products in 2006-2007 (3): “The demand for biofuels induced a rise not only in the price of corn, but also of other grains, meat, chicken and dairy produce”. Among the “other grains”, especially the demand for soy stands out, the natural substitute for corn in the production of fodder. To estimate the dimension of this impact, it is considered that about 70% of all globally produced corn is consumed for fodder in the industrial production of pigs and poultry (and eggs). Corn is the most important factor in the composition of the production costs of animal products. Additionally, corn is the supply for the production of hundreds of products, and among all the grains produced by mankind probably the most essential one, because it is used every day more, not directly as food but as industrial raw material. (4)

The most extreme example is the

United States

, which, in the 2007/2008 harvest, have already destined 25% of all the corn they produced to the production of ethanol. It is estimated that by 2010, the United States will increase this share to a third (5). As the United States are the main producer (until now) and the biggest exporter of corn in the world, the corn-based ethanol in the USA already constitutes alone a fact with global repercussions, causing a chain reaction. The first case of international repercussion, which became the most famous example for the competition between food and fuel, was the “tortilla crisis” in Mexico which occurred in the first months of 2007 due to the dependency on corn importations from the

USA

.

The recent wave of social unrest that has convulsed several countries, related to increasing prices and food supply which occupy the political agenda since the beginning of 2008, only confirms and aggravates a disaster already announced, which, to a great extent, is a consequence of the up-and-coming agrofuels industry- an industry which, in fact, already has serious impacts not only on rural zones, but on society as a whole.

Misleading Arguments

To understand the concrete effects with respect to food and agriculture, one first has to sort out the misleading arguments that defend the “good sides” of agrofuels and present them as an “opportunity for development” for southern agricultural countries or as an appeal to the environmental consciousness of the north. It is important to clarify that:

- There is no international market for agroenergy. Remember a crucial point: The investments and the frantic production of agrofuels on an industrial scale are destined to serve a future and potential market for exports, created by the justification that they mitigate climate change and/or guarantee energy security for countries (and by the dependency on oil imports), above all those of the North which are the main consumers of energy. What happens is that this “market” is absolutely artificially created, that is, by force of laws imposed by the respective nation states, which have the exclusive prerogative to fix targets of progressive and compulsory mixture of fuels. For instance, the European Union currently discusses its “targets”, which would be 5.75% agrofuels in the fuel matrix for transport from 2010 on, raising this target to 10% in 2020. (6)

At the origin of the onset of the speculation fever, production and investment in infrastructure which dramatically reshaped the rural environment and competed for agricultural land and water with food production, there is an artificially created market. This market competes directly with food production, as the analyses we refer to here clearly prove. This might be one of the most serious points, because it shows that, in fact, the problem is of an arbitrary and political nature. Above all, considering those governments of countries that do not have enough or appropriate land for this kind of production at their disposal (and which necessarily have to import), it is fundamental that just as their targets of obligatory mixture of agrofuels were politically created, they can and must be politically- and immediately- eliminated, as well.

- Industrial agrofuels are no solution for the serious problems of climate change and global warming: quite the contrary, they may well be one of the most drastic ways of aggravating global warming.

The net energy balance of agrofuels, that is, in real terms, how much energy they consume in relation to what they are said to produce (considering the whole production chain), is the main scientific argument to question their use and promotion on a large scale. In addition to the energy balance of agrofuels, it is fundamental to consider them in the broader dynamics of the expansion of the model of agroindustry and agrobusiness as principal vector of advancement of the agricultural frontier and of deforestation. As a matter of fact, large scale production exponentially increases changes in the use of land, the destruction of traditional ecosystems, the loss of habitats and the erosion of biodiversity with the expansion of energy monocultures. In this sense:

“Converting tropical forests, peatlands, grasslands (Cerrado) or land and meadows for the production of biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia and the United States creates a “carbon debt”, emitting between 17 to 420 more CO2 than the annual reduction of greenhouse gas through the substitution of fossil fuels”. (Fargione et al, 2008) (7)

The Cure is Worse than the Disease

It is important to stress that among the effects of climate change, the so-called “extreme climate effects” (typhoons, cyclones, storms, etc.) are increasingly affecting agriculture in various regions, making it unviable. Entire crops get lost due to the ever more frequent destabilization of the climate that agriculture depends on. Thus, the worsening of global warming as a function of the environmental impact of agrofuels also contributes to the ecological crisis that directly affects food production. Likewise, more industrial monocultures, now for agrofuels, mean more herbicides, which increase the pollution of soils and water, fundamental resources for guaranteeing healthy food.

Considering the impacts on the ecosystems, it is irrelevant whether agrofuels are produced using foodstuff (grains) or using varieties that are not directly edible (sugar cane) or even completely non-food (jatropha). In fact, the impact is on land and water. It is the competition for the commodity with the highest price: food or energy, and it is the pressure put on agricultural zones which affects the food security of the entire population.

In a direct, but also indirect and accumulative way, the production of agrofuels plays a structural role to understand the global food crisis. Although it is recognized that the global food crisis is the result of a combination of factors, acting jointly and simultaneously, industrial scale production of agrofuels is a structural factor to understand the global food crisis profoundly, because it makes it clear that the crisis is at the same time about food and about energy.

Finally, what actually is in crisis, or rather in an accelerated process of irreversible collapse, is the industrial model of agriculture, petroleum-dependant for inputs, agrochemicals and heavy mechanization. This model, which is transforming agriculture into agribusiness, only works by consuming enormous and irrational amounts of fossil fuels to sustain the global circulation of food-commodities, of food converted into merchandise, and with prices valued in dollars on the international market. The amounts of fuel that allow the transport of food to distant countries subject to dumping and to food aid, creating unsustainable markets such as export of flowers, fine fruits, hortifrutis, etc., which travel around the globe, even by airplane, are enormous.

It seems ironic that agrofuels have been suggested as a solution to a crisis, when it has already become very clear how they can aggravate it even more. As we stress here, the food crisis is not situational and it has to be perceived in its structural character, as a model of agriculture and, above all, energy which is coming to an end and which we have to find an alternative to. An alternative which guarantees both food sovereignty and energy sovereignty in the transition to a post-petroleum society, agriculture and economy. (Translation: ALAI).

- Camila Moreno is a researcher of Terra de Direitos,

Brazil

. She is pursuing doctorate studies on Agriculture, Development and Society at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. Article published in Spanish in América Latina en Movimiento, No 433, "Trasfondos de la crisis alimentaria", junio 2008.

Notes

(1) Especially the commodity type grains, that is, food with a fixed price on the international market.
(2) OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2008-2017
http://www.oecd.org/document/32/0,3343,en_36774715_36775671_40444896_1_1_1_1,00.html
(3) Butler, Desmond. "US disputes IMF on food prices". Associated Press, 15/05/2008. Cf. Rising food prices: Policy options and World Bank response, April 2008 http://siteresources.worldbank.org/NEWS/Resources/risingfoodprices_backgroundnote_apr08.pdf
(4) Pollan, Michael. O Dilema do Onívoro, Ed. Intrínseca, São Paulo (2007): “Corn is the main food product in its widest sense: it is contained in processed food, like cereals, its starch is used as a cream for decoration, its sugar is found in soft drinks as saccharin. It is an emulsifier, a colouring, the alcohol for beers. We find it in the cream for coffee, in ketchup, in canned fruits, in spices. At the Butcher’s, you can buy beef and pork fattened with corn portions, as well as chicken and turkey. Industrially bred fish also depends on corn portions, and even carnivores like salmon have been genetically modified so they can be fed with a corn diet. And it is in more things than those you eat: Corn is contained in toothpaste, lipsticks, eyeshadow, batteries, diapers, detergents, plastic products, paper and carton. Touch the walls of your supermarket and you will also find corn, as corn is also an agent in the mixtures for joints and paneling in construction”.
(5) World Bank's 2008 World Development Report, Agriculture for Development.
(6) The United States have an even more ambitious target, according to the forecast of the Renewable Fuels Standards and Energy Bill 2007. They have the obligatory target of using 28.4 thousand million liters of agrofuels for transport in 2012, which has to reach 35 thousand million gallons in 2022. Brazil has made obligatory the mixture of 2% biodiesel to diesel oil since January 2008, and an increase to 5% is foreseen for 2013 (which may be brought forward to 2010). India has a compulsory mixture of 5% ethanol to fuel in nine of its states, and

China

is demanding a mixture of 10% ethanol to fuel in five provinces.
(7) Fargione, Joseph. Hill, Jason. Tilman, David. Polasky, Sthepen. Hawthorne, Peter. Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1152747
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1152747v1

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/128892