Advanced BioFuels USA

By Hilary Landfried (Project Gaia)  … We rarely think of it here in the West, hooked up to electric and gas grids as we are, but nearly half of the world’s population still cooks on biomass fuels such as wood, charcoal, and coal. In some nations, domestic energy needs—primarily cooking and lighting—account for 90% of all energy used. My work regularly takes me to Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America where I work to promote and help to establish ethanol production as a clean cooking fuel. I’ve seen up close what this report overlooks: the world is not only facing a calorie deficit, it is also facing a clean energy deficit. Food and fuel are not mutually exclusive.

Food vs. Food and Fuel

For anyone with a basic understanding of biofuels, the “food vs. fuel” argument perpetuated in the WRI paper was laid to rest quite some time ago. This assertion has been so thoroughly disproventhat it is rarely discussed in the scientific community. The main points of the research debunking food vs. fuel are as follows.

First, there are many factors that influence the cost of food, one of which is the cost of oil. According to a World Bank Report, 66 percent of the food price increases are due to oil prices. Other factors include weather, the economy, and commodity market forces –not ethanol.

Second, diversifying markets for farmers ensures food production. Most farmers in developing markets have access only to very limited supply chains, and, with no refrigeration, 40% of food is lost before it can reach the market. This is because small farmers have little access to the energy and the facilities necessary for proper storage, processing, and transportation of food products. Energy is key for farmers—both as a market and to reach the market.

Although the authors of the working paper frequently cite the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), they ignore the fact that the FAO is a proponent of integrated food and energy systems (IFES). According to one report on IFES, “Producing food and energy side-by-side may offer one of the best formulas for boosting countries’ food and energy security while simultaneously reducing poverty.” Smallholders able to produce their own fuel can either sell that fuel to diversify their markets or use it for cooking, which significantly reduces the time women spend collecting fuelwood. Farmers could also use the fuel to reduce their fossil fuel costs, put more money into purchasing seeds that will be resistant to disease, or fuel the technology needed for storage and transportation.

Waste Not, Want Not

Many farmers and companies are already implementing food and energy systems in developing nations and in the United States. Contrary to the authors’ assertion that biofuels cause more land to be put under production, economists at Iowa State University recently published a report demonstrating the primary land use change that occurred over the last 10 years was from farmers using their available land more effectively.  READ MORE