Dev Shrestha: Real-World Data Shows No Food Insecurity or ILUC from Biofuels

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March 04, 2022

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by Tammy Klein (Transport Energy Strategies) On this episode of the Fueling the Future podcast, I spoke with Dr. Dev Shrestha of the University of Idaho about the recent paper he co-authored, “Biofuel Impact on Food Prices Index and Land Use Change.” The paper found, among other things that short term food price increases have been blamed on biofuel based on simplistic analyses, which may not reveal the main drivers of food insecurity and ignore opportunities for bioenergy to contribute to solutions. Looking at real-world data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the study team was able to show that there is no impact on food prices or land use change happening because of biofuels production and consumption. Following are a few excerpts from our discussion, which you can download or listen to at the link below or listen to in ITunes.

On the Question of Whether There Really Is Land Use Change Associated with Biofuels:

“This is one of the questions we generally get about biofuel, that if we grow or use agriculture product to make biofuel, then the same amount of agriculture product that uses in making biofuels fuel has to be grown somewhere else, that means somewhere else has to convert agricultural land or forest land into agriculture. That’s called indirect land use change. That means because of the fact that we use more biofuel in United States, some other country has to clear up forests to grow agriculture product that they’re missing from the United States. Again, this is all the model predictions. It makes sense from outside. The idea is that the biofuel creates more demand for agriculture product and the forest has to be converted to agricultural land. That’s a valid concern.

However, what we have found looking at the real world data is the opposite of this expectation. The world and U.S. agricultural land is steadily decreasing, not increasing. I would emphasize that fact that the world and the U.S. agricultural land is steadily decreasing. The reason that the world needs less land to grow food may be explained by improving land productivity. So despite declining agricultural land, the World Bank data shows we are growing agriculture production by 2.8%. And that’s been consistent since 2000. Declining agricultural land in case of the U.S. and the world average is true. However, we have not looked into individual countries. There may be some countries that deviate from the world average. So that’d be an interesting study in itself to look at, as you said, there may be a country or two which deviates from the average of the world’s land productivity or land use change impact we have seen in this study.”

On the Problem with Relying on Economic Models for Assessing Potential Land Use Change from Biofuels:

“Despite economic models having many known flaws, we rely on economic models because this is the best tool that’s available out there. And economic models have worked for many other problems, but since this is relatively new without much data, it hasn’t worked in addressing indirect land use issues for biofuels. So initial studies to predict land use change, again, have used these existing economic models. They were not designed to predict the impact of biofuels, that’s the reason that predictions were either off or even in some cases completely the opposite of what actually happened.

So I’ll give you these four predictions that was given in 2008 paper [the Searchinger study] using this economic model, and then we’ll compare how that economic models compare versus the real world. READ MORE; includes AUDIO

Cost of food rises as high gas prices impact the Salinas Valley agriculture industry (KSBW)

Princeton academics accuse EU biofuels policy of harming climate aims (EurActiv)

Biofuels’ impact on food security debate resurfaces amid Ukraine war (EurActiv)

Excerpt from EurActiv: The EU’s promotion of biofuels as a renewable energy source is undermining the bloc’s climate goals, a new study by Princeton University academics and CIRAD, a French agricultural research body, has found. Industry has accused the report of ignoring the benefits of energy crops to further an anti-biofuels narrative.

The report criticises European lawmakers for incentivising the growth of crops for biofuels through bioenergy policies, arguing that the land dedicated to biofuels should be reforested or converted for agricultural purposes to meet climate objectives.

Under Commission modelling, the opportunity cost inherent in dedicating land to biofuels is not recorded, undermining its true climate cost, according to Tim Searchinger of Princeton University, the lead author of the report.

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Asked by EURACTIV about the findings of the Princeton and CIRAD study, the European Commission said that it is committed to ensuring the sustainability of biofuels, which it characterised as “an important element” of the EU’s renewable energy policy.

“Member states remain free to use and import biofuels, but they will be able to include them in their renewable energy targets only up to the specific limits set in the Directive – unless they are certified as low-ILUC,” a Commission official told EURACTIV, referring to indirect land-use change, the phenomenon in which farmers opt to grow lucrative biofuel crops rather than food.

Brussels has set a 7% limit on the quantity of crop-based biofuels used in the transport sector. Member states also cannot go beyond a 1% point increase compared to the 2020 national share of these fuels in rail and road transport. For example, if the consumption level in 2020 was 4%, the country could not surpass 5% this year.

The Commission additionally adopted a delegated act that gives biofuels feedstock a percentage score based on their contribution to ILUC.

Only palm oil, which has a percentage score of 45% for land expansion, has been effectively banned as a transport fuel in the EU. Palm oil will be entirely phased out as a fuel source within the EU by 2030.

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The findings of the study were challenged by industry players, who accused the authors of failing to recognise that EU biofuel production greatly reduces the need to import animal feed and fossil fuels from outside the bloc.

The production of ethanol and biodiesel creates protein which is used for animal food, while biofuels use the excess fats and carbohydrates that cannot be consumed, said André Paula Santos, public affairs director with the European Biodiesel Board (EBB).

Biofuels’ promotion of protein production actually contributes to mitigating global food insecurity, he argued, highlighting the industry’s ability to store and transport grain as assets that can be used in the case of food shortages.

Santos also rejected claims that the biofuels industry is indirectly causing the destruction of forests outside of Europe.

“European biofuels policies do not ‘outsource deforestation’ as the report describes. All biofuels used in the EU, whether imported or homegrown, abide by strict sustainability criteria, including strict requirements to avoid any use of deforested land,” he said.

Santos referenced the EU’s decision to phase-out high-ILUC biofuels as evidence that current biofuel production is in line with the EU’s climate targets.

ePURE, a trade association representing European ethanol producers, was similarly critical of the study. Simona Vackeová, ePURE Secretary-General ad interim, argued that the report has “no practical relevance at all” to renewable ethanol in Europe given its crops’ low-ILUC rating.

The farming of crops for EU biofuel consumption in 2018 amounted to less than 3% of total EU cropland, Vackeová said. This is less than the share of fallow land in the EU, she added. READ MORE