Biofuels share common ground with an unusually high number of policy agendas, providing ample opportunities for novel partnerships and synergies to promote the common interest. Globally, biofuels are at the intersection of three key global challenges:

For developing regions, biofuels present an opportunity to reduce poverty by:

Thus, a strategic perspective on biofuels requires recognition of these various agendas and where they intersect—both to maximize the scope for promotion of the common interest and to minimize the possibility of being captured by narrower interests. In this note, we discuss: (i) recent concerns with increased biofuel production, and (ii) key building blocks of a globally consistent policy framework.

Concerns with Increased Biofuel Production
Some advocates have recently expounded on concerns arising from increased biofuel production—most prominently in the context of the food versus fuel debate but also with respect to biodiversity conservation. Based on the possibility that biofuel production will compete with food production, those primarily concerned with food security stress the potential for higher food prices to hurt those least able to cope—the poor in developing countries. Similarly, the community concerned with the conservation of biodiversity and preservation of natural ecosystems worries about the likelihood that land pulled into biofuels production will turn out, most often, to be land pulled out of conservation areas, particularly in poorer developing countries where institutional protections for biodiversity and ecosystems may be weakest.

While it is imperative that such concerns inform the policy debate, it must be recognized that these problems require a comprehensive analysis—or as, economists would say, a general equilibrium rather than a partial equilibrium analysis.

The broader picture on higher commodity prices is that, on the whole, they benefit developing countries as these tend to specialize in the production and export of commodities. Moreover, within developing countries, the majority of the poor live in rural areas where the primary occupation is farming and the observed tendency towards subsistence farming has a lot to do with low (internal) prices for food and lack of market access—meaning that higher food prices gives these farmers a better chance to benefit from market access and provides them with more incentive to increase production. More generally, it is clear that the preferred route to economic development, for these countries, is through increased productivity and higher incomes in the agricultural sector:

Increased urbanization in pursuit of other sources of higher income is not likely to be an optimal outcome—not for these countries and not for the world, particularly as most climate-changing emissions actually originate in urban areas.

Additionally, the recent rise in food prices is due to a unique convergence of factors, some of which are transitory (for a useful summary see José Goldemberg (2008), “The Challenge of Biofuels, Energy and Environmental Science 1, 523–525). These factors include: high energy and fertilizer prices, the continuing depreciation of the US dollar, drought in Australia, growing global demand for grains (particularly in China), changes in the import–export policies of some countries and speculative activity on future commodities trading, and regional problems driven by policies subsidizing biofuels’ production in the US and Europe. Finally, it is important to emphasize that: (i) the land currently in use for biofuels production is less than 1% of the total of 1.5 billion hectares used for agriculture, and (ii) arable and non-forested land currently available in South America and Africa is approximately half of the land currently in use for agriculture! Thus, allocating more land for biofuel production should be feasible—and with only minimal tradeoffs for food production capacity.

With respect to preservation of biodiversity and ecosystems, caution with generalizations is also warranted. While it has become clear that some practices originally associated with increased production of palm oil in southeast Asian countries are clearly unsustainable, the same is not true for all biofuel crops everywhere. Jatropha, for example is a non-food crop that grows well on agriculturally-marginal lands; in central Mozambique, for example, the land used by Kijani Energy for plantation of Jatropha is composed of 72-84% sand. There is no clearance of tropical peat bogs or destruction of primary forest associated with our plantations. In addition, Jatropha is a low-input crop, requiring relatively little water and fertilizer—further mitigating possible stresses on the ecosystem.

More broadly, the attribution of negative climate impacts from land-use changes strictly to increased biofuel production can be glaringly short-sighted. In Africa, for example, the pursuit of inefficient non-commercial sources of energy and the extension of wasteful techniques of land-clearing lead to people setting fire to African landscapes season after season. The burning area shifts from north to south over the course of the year, in step with the coming and going of Africa's rainy and dry seasons. When the fire-return interval is too quick, the land may become degraded and unusable for farming or grazing. In the semi-arid and fragile Sahel, for example, land degradation through overuse of fire or overgrazing can create pockets of desert. The massive amount of burning that occurs on Africa each year creates carbon dioxide and aerosol particles, both of which play a role in global climate. Finally, the smoke and accompanying gases and particles create a public health hazard; during an area's burning season, the amounts of ground-level ozone and other air pollutants can become hazardous to human health. In Mozambique, for example, there are thousands of deaths every year from out-of-control intentional burns. The image shown here was taken by NASA's Earth Observatory
(http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0906-nasa_africa_fires.html) over a ten-day period (August 9-18, 2005).

In these countries, increased availability of commercial energy, including from biofuels, promises to improve on these land-use patterns both by generating additional income-generating activities and by increasing access to different sources of energy. In central Mozambique, the land used by Kijani Energy for the plantation of Jatropha had been the site of regular burns by the local population, primarily for the production of charcoal for cooking. Our project will create stable full-time employment for close to 1,000 people, we will buy large quantities of food for our labour force from nearby farmers and our outgrower program will increase farm productivity and incomes for participants. Thus, the evaluation of the possible impact of land-use change attributed to increased biofuel production would also need to take into account the initial positive impact from reduced intentional burns.

Policy Framework
The bottom line is that better policy and outcomes will come from a better and more nuanced understanding of the trade-offs and complementariness among various objectives and concerns for increased biofuel production… but it is the common good and not narrow interests that must be the primary goal. At this stage, the policy community can make a lasting and decisive contribution by presenting evaluation metrics against which emerging biofuels options and practices can be evaluated. The broader policy challenges certainly require: