Biofuels and Local Food Security: What Does the Evidence Say?

Ethiopia, Feedstocks, Field/Orchard/Plantation Crops/Residues, Indonesia, International, Mozambique, Policy, R & D Focus, Sustainability, Tanzania, Zambia

April 14, 2014

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by Anna Locke and Giles Henley (Overseas Development Institute) • People worry that using crop-based biofuels to increase the volume of low-carbon fuels could worsen hunger in poor countries by pushing up global food prices and endangering local food security.
• ODI research finds that existing evidence does not allow us to state categorically that biofuels projects in developing countries worsen local food security.
• Existing studies suggest that the impact of biofuels on food security may not differ markedly from that of other agro-industrial crops. Other factors may be more important than the crop itself in avoiding negative outcomes: the way that land is made available for projects; the project design and the models of production used; the use of existing safeguards and best practice in project design and land acquisition. READ MORE
Written by Anna Locke, Head of ODI’s Agricultural Development and Policy programme (a.locke@odi.org.uk) and Giles Henley, Research Officer (g.henley@odi.org.uk). This ODI Briefing is based on two longer reports: ‘Scoping report on biofuels projects in five developing countries’, Anna Locke and Giles Henley, May 2013 (www.odi.org.uk/biofuels-land-agriculture); and ‘A review of the literature on biofuels and food security at a local level: assessing the state of evidence’, Anna Locke and Giles Henley, January 2014 (www.odi.org.uk/biofuels-lit-review).

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