GLOBAL FORUM ON FOOD SECURITY AND NUTRITION CONTRIBUTIONS TO DISCUSSION No. 64

FOOD SECURITY INDICATORS FOR BIOFUEL CERTIFICATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION OF THE TOPIC ..................................................................................................2

CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED.......................................................................................................4

Luis Panichelli from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland...........................4

Elton Sinyangwe from Zambia.................................................................................................4

Kodjo Dokodjo from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Togo ......................5

Salvador Feranil from Philippine Network of Rural Development Institutes, Philippines .........5

Anne Bogdanski from FAO, Italy .............................................................................................6

Pradip Dey, Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, India ......................................................7

Mario Gamberale, Kyoto Club, Italy.........................................................................................7

Alessandro Flammini from FAO, Italy......................................................................................7

Giuseppina Pagano from the Federal Office for Agriculture, Switzerland................................8

Renata Mirulla from FAO, Italy ................................................................................................8

Sonja Vermeulen from the CCAFS, Denmark .........................................................................9

Sander van Bennekom and Madelon Meijer from Oxfam Novib, the Netherlands.................10

Don Scott, National Diesel Board, USA.................................................................................10

Further contribution by Don Scott, National Diesel Board, USA ............................................11

Raymond Erick Zvavanyange from Taiwan ...........................................................................12

Geeta Oberoi, Maharashtra Judicial Academy, India ............................................................12

Liz Muller, environmental consultant, USA............................................................................13

Mohamed Elhacen Ould KHOUNA, Mauritanie .....................................................................14

Craig Jamieson, independent consultant, UK........................................................................15

Takayuki Kusajima from Toyota Motor Co, Japan.................................................................15

Beau Damen from the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Thailand ....................16

Helga Vierich-Drever from Canada .......................................................................................17

Concluding remark by Andrea Rossi, topic raiser..................................................................22

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INTRODUCTION OF THE TOPIC

Dear Forum Members, I am the Technical Officer of the FAO’s Bioenergy and Food Security Criteria and Indicators (BEFSCI) Project, which is currently developing a set of detailed criteria, indicators, good practices and policy options on sustainable bioenergy production that fosters rural development and food security. In October, the BEFSCI team organized, on this Forum, a discussion on a preliminary set of “core” indicators that countries can use to monitor the impacts of modern bioenergy production on food security (see Discussion No. 60 “Measuring the Impacts of Bioenergy Production on Food Security”). As explained below, this complementary discussion focuses on food security indicators in the context of biofuel (or biofuel feedstock) certification schemes. Over the past few years, a number of multi-stakeholder initiatives have been established in order to develop voluntary sustainability standards for the certification of biofuels or of specific biofuel feedstocks. The BEFSCI project reviewed a number of these initiatives, which were included into a Compilation of Bioenergy Sustainability Initiatives. Among these, the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) has developed a voluntary, third-party certification system for biofuel sustainability which encompasses environmental, social and economic principles and criteria and which applies to operators along the entire biofuel production chain (i.e. from farmers to biofuel processors and biofuel blenders). Based on inputs from a broad range of experts and organizations (including FAO), RSB has developed a principle (Principle 6) and two criteria (6a and 6b) on local food security, which apply to food-insecure regions only (see page 17 of the RSB Principles & Criteria). Criterion 6a requires that biofuel operations assess the risk of negative impacts on food security among directly affected stakeholders. In the event that initial screening indicates that a risk to food security exists, operators are required to conduct a food security impact assessment in accordance with the RSB Food Security Guidelines. Through the food security impact assessment and the Environmental and Social Management Plan, the operator is obliged to mitigate any negative impacts. Criterion 6b requires that biofuel operations enhance the local food security of the directly affected stakeholders in areas where food insecurity already exists. RSB has also developed, through an expert consultation process, a proposal for the inclusion of the indirect impacts of biofuel production - including on food security - into the RSB Standard (see the RSB Discussion Paper “Addressing Indirect Impacts in the RSB Standard”. As stated in this paper, “indirect impacts of a biofuel operation have effects outside the geographical boundary of such operation. Such indirect impacts are the result of displacing existing provisioning services (e.g., food, feed, fuel, fiber) towards biofuel production” (page 2). The paper discusses two options for addressing indirect impacts in the RSB Standard, which could also be implemented in combination: to develop a dedicated principle and associated criteria; or to address these impacts in the RSB Standard for Risk Management. This discussion aims to address the following questions:

1. In your view, do Principle 6 and criteria 6a and 6b of the RSB Standard adequately address the potential negative impacts of biofuel production on local food security? Would you have any changes and/or additions to suggest that may improve the standard? Do you agree with the focus of the aforementioned principle and criteria on food insecure regions?

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2. In your opinion, should voluntary standards for certification (such as the RSB) aim to address the indirect effects of biofuel production on food security as proposed in the RSB Discussion Paper “Addressing Indirect Impacts in the RSB Standard”? Or do you think that these impacts might be better dealt with at the policy level (for instance through the “core” FAO-BEFSCI indicators for monitoring the impacts of bioenergy production on food security - see FSN Forum Discussion No. 60)?

3. The RSB Discussion Paper “Addressing Indirect Impacts in the RSB Standard” mentions a few good practices that could be implemented in order to minimize the risk of negative indirect effects - including on food security – of biofuel operations. In your view, would further work on these practices (e.g. a compilation of good practices/case studies) be useful?

Your feedback on these questions would be really appreciated. Thank you in advance for your time and inputs, which will help inform FAO’s inputs to the RSB and other similar processes. The outcomes of this discussion, combined with the results on the on-going RSB pilot-tests, might also inform possible future revisions of the RSB Standard. We are looking forward to a fruitful discussion with you. Thanks. Best regards, Andrea Rossi Natural Resources Management Officer (Bioenergy) Bioenergy and Food Security Criteria and Indicators (BEFSCI) Project

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CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED

Luis Panichelli from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland Dear All, In order to contribute to the discussion forum on Food Security in Biofuels Certification I would like to share with you some documents (I, II)we have developed at the Bioenergy and Energy Planning Research Group (BPE-EPFL). They account mainly for reviews of initiatives to assess biofuels sustainability and how land-use changes (LUC) are being assessed in the context of biofuels production. To this end, we have collaborated with the RSB on assessing the driving forces of land-use change at the local and global levels. We would like to state the need for modelling approaches to assesses the impact of biofuels production on land-use change, and consequently on food security. Find here two papers proposing alternative methods to estimate biofuels’ impact on LUC (I, II). I am currently finishing my PhD that aims to develop Sustainability Impact Assessment indicators to assess the impact of large scale biofuel programs on LUC and greenhouse gas emissions. I hope the outcome of this work gives some contributions to the assessment of biofuels sustainability. In case you are interested it will be a pleasure to further discuss this approach after completion of my PhD. Looking forward to contribute to this discussion, Kind regards Luis PANICHELLI Research Assistant / PhD Candidate E.Gnansounou Research Group on Bioenergy and Energy Planning (BPE) Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - Lausanne (EPFL) Switzerland Elton Sinyangwe from Zambia I once worked with a firm that had a jatropha plantation "miles away from civilisation" their policies & the whole business concept where brilliant. They empowered a forgotten community & increased accessibility to the region, which in turn was good in terms of food & nutrition. There was all this issue of fuel crops competing with food crops, so as proof of concept that the fuel crops business when approached in a systematic & humane manner with no ill intent could actually promote food security & empower communities. As such, the firm set off to a remote location which was at the time difficult to access by road, the people in the area depended on hunting as a way of life & they always had poor crop yields. The coming in of the jatropha plantation brought a glimmer of hope to the community. Lack of general consensus between stakeholders lead to the demise of the project, but from my experience I can tell you that the concept was proved: a viable biofuel business can be run & communities can be empowered. Elton Sinyangwe Zambia

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Kodjo Dokodjo from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Togo Dear Andrea, First of all, have my best wishes for the year 2011. May our forum bring us something better in this year! The principle that Biofuel operations shall ensure the human right to adequate food and shall improve food security in food insecure regions is very good news and for that the Project BEFSCI is well come. We do believe that if this project is effective, it will contribute to solve poverty problems in the rural area: employment of the youth and the rural exodus. But it will also strike food security in the region by using the same agricultural production factors such as land, labor force and water. This will be the main problem that we are going to face. However, the development of the project as it is progressing will need more and more lands and arable lands suitable for food production may be occupied by biofuel production. But solutions can be found to these problems. The main one is good practice in land use. Several studies carried by consultants from diverse institutions including FAO highlighted how human pressure through urban construction on arable lands is becoming a serious problem to food security. Hitherto, no study is carried in the developing countries to measure the encroachment of urban construction on arable lands. A recent study, through Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS), carried by the Egyptian Agricultural Department, in collaboration with IGN France International revealed that between 1985 and 2005, urban extension gained 90 km2 acreage in average; and between 2006 and 2009 urban extension gained 125km2 acreage in average, that is to say from 1985 to 2009, urban constructions have used about 36 % of the agricultural production lands. If this is the progression rate of urban encroachment on agricultural lands, not only food security will be struck, but it will also jeopardize the development of the biofuel production project. It will be therefore necessary to find means to limit the encroachment of urban constructions on cultivable lands before the implantation of the project. Kodjo Dokodjo Chef Division des Statistiques Agricoles Ministère de l'Agriculture, de l'Elevage et des Pêches Lomé, Togo Salvador Feranil from Philippine Network of Rural Development Institutes, Philippines Warmest greetings of Peace from the Philippines! Having been part of the RSB Steering Board in the past years, I am fully supportive of the principles and criteria set by our group as regards addressing food security in biofuel certification. Nonetheless, while provisions mentioned in these principles and criteria do address the issue of food security vis-a-vis biofuels production in more ways than one, I firmly believe that voluntary standards can become insufficient (especially in the long run)in fully ensuring (in the strictest sense)that the direct and indirect impacts of biofuel production on food security among local food producers will be properly mitigated by investors. There is always a fear, especially among the small food producers in our country that investments on biofuel production will compete and under certain circumstances work against ensuring adequate food for domestic consumption. And as food security issues relate to access to land, the fear that vast tracts of lands formerly devoted for local food and agricultural production will be converted for non-food use still remain. Further, land grab initiatives of private capital related to biofuel production and investments tend to be supported by governments that have succumbed to the pressures of corporate lobbying. On that note, I am of the opinion that a more institutionalized policy on this matter must be crafted among multilateral policy-making institutions and should be strongly complemented with national

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legislation initiatives especially in countries where biofuels investments and production are being eyed by the private sector. Salvador Feranil Anne Bogdanski from FAO, Italy Dear Andrea, dear participants, my comment is referring to questions 2 and 3. As you say, approaches to address indirect impacts caused by the expansion of biofuel crops have intensively been discussed between different stakeholders, particularly for the purpose of biofuel certification, e.g. under the GBEP and RSB. This is particularly true for indirect land use change (iLUC), and its potential negative impact on food security. Most efforts have been undertaken to quantify potential iLUC effects through modeling. This exercise has shown many different results to-date, mainly due to different assumptions underlying the given models, and an agreement between different stakeholders is not to be expected in the near future. However, a necessary complement to risk quantification, has hardly been taken into account so far – i.e. the prevention and/or mitigation of unwanted effects related to iLUC, and related to this risk mitigation for food security. There are several mitigation options available that can address this issue, but the current debate lacks concrete information on how to make mitigation options work in practical terms: How do farming practices look like in technical and agronomical terms? How should intuitions be structured to support the implementation of the options available? Which policies need to be in place to incentivize certain models and best practices? Which would be the best option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact in general? How can small-scale farmers and private companies benefit alike?

Safely integrating food and energy production through physical integration of different crops, and, mainly, through the use of by-products in one production system or across regions is suggested to be an effective approach of mitigating iLUC (e.g Ecofys 2010, Tilman et al. 2009). Implementing IFES leads to increased land and water productivity, therefore reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing food security. Moreover by combining food and energy production, IFES reduce the need to convert land to produce energy, in addition to land already used to agriculture. This further reduces the risks associated with land conversion – hence additional GHG emissions. Several recent scientific studies substantiate the mitigation of iLUC through IFES options, particularly Type 2 IFES, with concrete data. A report commissioned the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Ros et al. 2010) comes to the conclusion that if by-products from rapeseed and wheat are used for feed substituting soy meal, the land use for soy cultivation can be reduced by 50 to 100% compared to the land used for the cultivation of the rapeseed and/or wheat depending on the protein content. Therefore, by-products used for feed may substantially change indirect effects of land-use change and overall greenhouse gas emission reductions from biofuel production. An in-house literature review conducted for DG Energy as part of the European Commission's analytical work on iLUC (EC 2010) finds that taking into account of co-products reduces the estimated land requirement significantly - between 23% and 94%. Under the overall framework of FAO’s project on Integrated Food Energy Systems (IFES), we have compiled a detailed literature review on good practices that address the above mentioned questions. It has been illustrated with several examples from the field, showing where such practices are already in place and working. The study has been complemented with the results of a technical consultation that took place in July 2010 at FAO headquarters in Rome. “Making Integrated Food-Energy Systems (IFES) Work for People and Climate- An Overview” can be downloaded at http://www.fao.org/bioenergy/67564/en/#programme.

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Anne Bogdanski Please find below some relevant references:

ECOFYS (2009) Mitigating Indirect Effects of Biofuel Production: Case Studies and Methodology. Report for the Renewable Fuels Agency.

Tilman, D., Socolow, R., Foley, A., Hill, J., Larson, E., Lynd, L., Pacala, S., Reilly, J., Searchinger, T., Somerville, C., and Williams, R. (2009) Beneficial Biofuels -The Food, Energy, and Environment Trilemma. Science 325: 270-271.

Ros, J.; Van den Born, G.J., and Notenboom, J. (2010). The contribution of by-products to the sustainability of biofuels. Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2010 - http://www.mnp.nl/bibliotheek/rapporten/500143004.pdf

EC (2010). The impact of land use change on greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels and bioliquids. Literature review; http://ec.europa.eu/energy/renewables/consultations/doc/public_consultation_iluc/study_3_land_use_change_literature_review_final_30_7_10.pdf

Pradip Dey, Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, India Dear FSN Forum Members, Warmest Greetings for a Happy and prosperous New Year-2011! While Andrea has raised a very pertinent question, I feel we have to consider the issue cautiously. We do need energy security and biofuel is a good option. However, I do feel that time has come to address the issue of food security and energy security holistically. We need to remember that many reports including that of Oxfam have raised finger to biofuel policy vis-à-vis poverty. Land sparing option for the major food grains for biofuel need to be assessed critically. In the spree for energy security we should not forget the importance of food security and backstab the millennium development goal because I feel the world has last chance with the fulfillment of UN Millennium Development Goals to save from societal disputes and maintenance of peace Pradip Dey Haryana, India Mario Gamberale, Kyoto Club, Italy Dear FSN Forum Members, Please find enclosed a presentation of a project we are implementing in Ghana which combines Food and oil production: “Sustainable Palm & Jatrofa Oil Production in Ghana” http://typo3.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/fsn/docs/Biofuels/Sustainable_Palm_and_Jatrofa_Oil_Production_in_Ghana__1_7_2010.pdf . Alessandro Flammini from FAO, Italy Dear Andrea, I think that the general description of the RSB principle and criteria on food security addresses adequately the risk associated with biofuel operations but they seem a bit weak in the principle and too demanding in the criteria description. The principle says "Biofuel operations shall ensure the human right to adequate food and improve food security in food insecure regions" and I think that it is not only the "right to adequate food" to be endangered by biofuel production but any shocks in food price, availability, access etc should be

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considered. In some regions, price of one cereal could double, without endangering the 'right to adequate food', but still it is a negative effect on the overall food security situation. Also the requirement of 'improving' food security is quite demanding in my opinion, especially if biofuel is produced from some non-food crops. This also refers to criterion 6b. I notice that small farmers for example are exempted from criterion 6b, but they are not exempted from 'assessing local food security', a requirement that could potentially cut out a large part of them from the certification scheme. Does RSB outline a methodology to be followed for the initial screening excercise? Coming to your next questions I think that indirect impacts of biofuel production can be better dealt at the policy level first and only after be addressed by certification standards. More discussion and agreement is (urgently) needed at the international level on indirect effects of biofuel production and I think that complementing this with a bottom-up approach starting from identification of good practices will surely help to achieve this goal. Best regards, Alessandro Flammini, FAO Giuseppina Pagano from the Federal Office for Agriculture, Switzerland Hello Regarding the consultation „Addressing Food Security in Biofuel Certification“ please find herewith our input: Question 1 + 2: we have no additions to make, question 3: a case study might be useful to better illustrate how the risk of negative indirect effects could be minimized. Best regards Giuseppina Pagano Federal Department of Economic Affairs FDEA Federal Office for Agriculture FOAG International sustainable agriculture Unit Renata Mirulla from FAO, Italy Dear Andrea and all, I would like contribute on the issue of biofules indirect impacts, and share my view on the reasons why I think these should be included in the RSB certification standard (question 2). The assessment of indirect environmental, social and economic impacts of private operations within voluntarily certification schemes has been extensively debated and is included in other certifications schemes, such as the EU commission’s environmental management scheme (EMAS). This certification scheme can be applied in any sector and requires a full assessment of both direct and indirect impacts of the operator’s activities. The rational behind the inclusion of indirect impacts is that they can sometimes be much more relevant than direct impacts; although the single operator might not have full control on its indirect impacts, still it is important not only that he is aware of them and that he uses his possibilities to mitigate them, and not leave the problem to the political level only. This would be in line with what already is happening in the sustainability domain, were the higher degree of shared responsibility among different stakeholders is becoming more mainstream in

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many concepts, initiatives and approaches (ex. the Extended producer responsibility (EPR), the Life Cycle Assessment methodology etc...). Of course there is a higher level of complexity in assessing indirect impacts and probably not all producers would be able to do it, but it should also be kept in mind that a voluntary certification scheme emphasizes a best practice in the sector and opens the path for other to follow. Therefore I think the RSB should go further in understanding and evaluating indirect impacts and consider them both in the Principles for certification and in the Risk assessment and not leave them only at the government / political level, providing guidance and support on how to go about on their evaluation and mitigation them from the private operators perspective, including the collection of best practices you mention. I wish you all the best for your teams' work towards more sustainable energy production. Renata Sonja Vermeulen from the CCAFS, Denmark Dear Andrea and colleagues 1. It is not really possible to have a perfect metric of local food security, for several reasons, most importantly the rapid and complex dynamics of household-level food status. It is difficult to capture the impact of external influences - national wages and grain/energy prices for example - relative to local (often non-market) food production and distribution. It is also difficult to judge the relative stability of (a) self-sufficiency in food against (b) market integration that involves substituting high-value cash-crops for staple foods, but brings income that can buy more (and better) food than achievable through subsistence cropping. Answers will be highly specific to ecosystems and cultures. Given these difficulties, the RSB team has done a great job of synthesising the key elements of protecting local food security into two criteria. Our next concern should perhaps be how practicable the criteria are in the field. They may be very costly (in terms of time, expertise etc) and may or may not be considered legitimate by local stakeholders. My sense is rather than subject them to further discursive critique, it is time to put them to test on the ground. Definitely the emphasis on food insecure regions is correct, so long as these regions are identified by household nutritional status and food security dimensions (availability, access, utilisation, stability) not just by local food production. 2. My preference would be for the policy-level approach to indirect effects. I think there is a real danger of the biofuels industry rejecting voluntary standards on the grounds that they are unfairly discriminatory towards biofuel feedstocks compared to other non-food crops (and food crops). The problem becomes particularly stark for those crops that can be used for both food and non-food purposes. There are alternative approaches to standards that overcome the "indirect effects" problem, for example principles and criteria that apply to all of agriculture, or to all of land use, rather than being sector-specific. For example the Terrestrial Carbon Group is embarking on a global process to come up with tools and standards to inform the full set of land use choices (among biofuels, other crops, forest reserves, protected areas, settlement etc.) 3. I believe that a compendium of good practices would be very useful indeed, perhaps even more than standards themselves. Best wishes for the ongoing initiative Sonja Vermeulen CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security

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Sander van Bennekom and Madelon Meijer from Oxfam Novib, the Netherlands Dear Andrea, Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the future development of the RSB's methodology to address food security. We would like to comment briefly on the po i nts that you have raised: 1. In general we feel that the approache taken by RSB is quite state of the art, from a theoretical point of view. It remains to be seen how the standard will deal with the possible adverse impacts for food security. How do projections on negative consequence for food security feed back into the system? How can de process guarantee that the outcome of the studies on food secrutiry are taken seriously? If the assessment indicates risks for food security, the operation should not take place unless there are guarantees to adequately deal with the identified risks. And besides, food security is not only a question of food prices and availability. Eg., forests provide many so-called non-timber forest products such medicines and building material. If the land use change reduce the availability of these products, it can also impact food security. 2. Oxfam believes these indirect effects are an indispensable element of certification processes. Various reports of well respected think tanks have highlighted the problems that the production of biomass for energy is a factor in food security. And without attention for these indirect effects, claim of `sustainable biofuels' are not credible. Having said that, biofuel producers can not deal with this issue by themselves. Appropriate policies, agriculture zoning and enforcement of these zoning policies are necessary to achieve food security. So certification systems can not solely be held responsible for risks to food security. Hence, certification systems should be part of a wider macro policy on land use. 3. Concrete examples are a good way to gain insight in the chances for success of these policies. There is a risk however that a comparison of examples becomes a goal in itself. It is imperative to analyse if examples fully respect the criteria from the RSB. An example should not be `the best', it should live up to the RSB standard. Hope this helps, Sander van Bennekom Madelon Meijer Oxfam Novib Don Scott, National Diesel Board, USA Impacts of food security, land use, and land use change are interrelated and among the primary concerns that have led to the formation of multiple biofuel sustainability standard-setting bodies. Many organizations include food security as a general principle of sustainability. However, many existing organizations inadequately measure the relationships between food security, bioenergy, and conventional energy sources. Impacts on food security related to bioenergy should include and quantify: 1) Global food production currently relies on unsustainable sources of fossil energy. Renewable sources of energy are ultimately needed to sustain global food production. 2) Many bioenergy feedstocks are coproducts of food production, which means they improve the economics of food production-making those industries and individual businesses more economically sustainable and ensuring the stable food production capacity.

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3) To the extent that coproducts of food production can be converted to bioenergy and produce a revenue stream, that revenue can offset the input cost of the entire crop and potentially reduce the cost of the food portion of the crop. 4) Food security is not directly proportional to cheap food prices. Low food prices can impinge upon small farmers’ economic sustainability, resulting in reduced quantity of local food production and weakened food security. Solutions to poverty and ineffective food distribution are needed to ensure access to food for all people. Holding food commodity prices low is an ineffective way to ensure access, and has the negative consequence of reducing overall food production. 5) Healthy food commodity prices increase investment in agricultural technology that leads to more sustainable farming with higher yields, reduced or optimized inputs, and reduced environmental impact. 6) Climate change is a major threat to agriculture and food production. To the extent climate change is caused by fossil carbon emissions, conventional sources of energy have significant negative effects on food security. Biofuels are an important alternative to reducing reliance on combustion of fossil fuels. Regarding indirect effects, it is important to remember that indirect effects like international land use change are effects of aggregated commodity markets. Individual biofuel producers have no measurable indirect effect on the global market. In fact, empirical data shows no measurable impact on land use change correlating with the existing biofuel production. This examination of real world data differs from ILUC theory and model results, because of the assumption in modeling, likely faulty, that global agriculture is operating in a land-scarce scenario. The total acreage of agricultural land is finite, and that has led people to be concerned whether we have enough land to grow food for 9 billion people and also produce renewable fuel from agricultural products. However, accurate inventories of available land and assessments of how to use land more efficiently will likely prove that we are not now in a land-scarce scenario; and that we need more, not less, investment in agriculture to become more sustainable. Don Scott Director of Sustainability National Biodiesel Board Further contribution by Don Scott, National Diesel Board, USA An example of how food and fuel can be coproduced from existing crops is programs like that of the World Soy Foundation which provides nutritional rations to children in developing nations. These programs not only provide valuable nutrition, but they provide incentive for people to send their children to school. In 2008, 360 million gallons of biodiesel from soybeans in the U.S. co-produced enough soybean meal for the equivalent of 110 billion rations of protein. In 2009, 247 million gallons of biodiesel from soybeans co-produced enough meal for the equivalent of 72 billion rations of protein. The largest use of soy product is for livestock feed. The report posted online at http://www.biodieselsustainability.org/soybean.pdf quantifies how using surplus soybean oil to produce biodiesel can lower the price of the primary feed product.

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Kodjo Dokodjo wrote: Several studies carried by consultants from divers institutions including FAO highlighted how human pressure through urban construction on arable lands is becoming a serious problem to food security.

An example of these negative pressures on agricultural land are statistics maintained by the United State Department of Agriculture and the American Farmland Trust. These statistics show that two acres of farmland are lost every minute to development. Raymond Erick Zvavanyange from Taiwan FSN Forum, I read with interest the guidelines on addressing food security through biofuel certifications and related resources on this topic. My submission is a simple one. Parties concerned must ensure adherence to laid guidelines and keep this within the set limits. Geeta Oberoi, Maharashtra Judicial Academy, India Dear Andrea, (1) In my view, both criteria 6a and 6b do not adequately address the potential negative impacts of biofuel production on local food security because, (a) If we analyse which are favourite hot spots for biofuel production, it emerges - Mozambique, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Bangladesh, Benin, Congo DR, Cambodia, Senegal, Angola and some tribal areas in India. If we analyse producer category for biofuels, it emerges that European Union, some corporate interests from France, England and Italy have huge interest in biofuel production apart from the World Bank. This picture reveals the power game that goes behind biofuel production. Not so powerful nations are pressurised to sell their land to benefit biofuel producers by having FDI in land. (b) So far no impact assessment of any nature has been undertaken of biofuel production. Already biofuel production is on its way. Why will producer who is in mid way of his productions be interested in carrying out impact assessment? (c) Even assuming that these are criteria for future production, if we take criteria 6a, there is huge problem with it. It allows biofuel production even in food insecure regions by assessing what more problems can be cause in such food insecure areas than those already subsisting, and then evaluating how much problems can only owe their origins to biofuel production and then develop mitigation plan to mitigate problems cause by biofuel production. (d) Mitigation plan is very vague concept and producer is free to devise this mitigation plan. Looking back to the parallel concept of Corporate Social Responsibility it would not be difficult to imagine what kind of mitigation plans would emerge. Good legal mind and cleverness can make fun of good intentions behing this concept. (e) Should biofuel production be allowed in countries where there are no real stakeholders. In such countries people who are most affected would be sidelined and would rarely get a chance to participate/represent their interests. How can social and economic assessment be done in this situation?

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(f) Criteria 6b is making fun of directly affected stakeholders. Take for instance, a military regime which strikes deal with foriegn biofuel investor and sells huge tracts of land to this investor. This regime will even take responsibility to evict anybody who occupies this sold land. It will by force and other means evict, drive away all living beings months in advance before notifying the deal it has struck with respect to the land. How will displaced people who are directly affected due to biofuel investor claim againt this investor? Even if they file suit in the court - theirs or courts of biofuel investor, there is good defence that this investor has come into picture much late and therefore is not liable for acts done prior to its deal. Though all evictions and human rights violations start right from the time negotiation starts between biofuel investor and military regime. (g) Criteria 6b tells biofuel producer to stand in the shoe of the government and undertake steps to help people in food insecure regions where biofuel production has commenced. Producer for profits would not be doing this charity so easily and there seems no mandatory requirements. Due to above contradictions and problems I am of the view that biofuel production should not be allowed at all in food insecure regions. It seems unjust that in areas where land and other resources are not sufficient enough to produce for bodily consumption needs of living beings, the very same resources are divested to produce bodily needs of automobile industry. Can automobile industry project be allowed to become more important than living beings? In my opinion therefore food insecure regions should not be explored for biofuel production and any country encouraging FDI for biofuel must through the offices of the UN and FAO be mandated to not venture in this area of production unless and until they become food secure regions. This is very much parallel to countries not allowed to undertake nuclear fuel production unless and until they satisfy the world that they have in place rationale, legal and competent resources to handle such production. Same responsibility should be placed on biofuel producers. They should be allowed to undertake biofuel production in food insecure regions by having fulfilled minimum requirement of making that region food secure first and eliminating hunger from that region and not hungry completely. (2) In my opinion voluntary standards are no standards and corporate social responsibility concept and its compliance has proved that adequately. Therefore something stronger and mandatory requirements in place can achieve much more. (3) I think we have to change the tone of minimizing the risk of negative impacts and we must ensure biofuel production like nuclear material production to be undertaken by and at places where we can have no risks to anyone and anybody. Geeta Oberoi Additional Director Maharashtra Judicial Academy Maharashtra India Liz Muller, environmental consultant, USA Dear BESFCI Team, I would like to take this opportunity to share some input that we received during a recent needs assessment of the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) in the context of Hawaii as it relates to food security. Liz Muller, LLC facilitated the needs assessment on behalf of T

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Hawai‘i Biofuels Foundation (HBF), a newly created multi-stakeholder organization, that is seeking to support this transition by facilitating the development of a sustainable Hawai‘i-based biofuels industry, specifically utilizing sustainably produced and locally grown agricultural wastes or energy crops. The attached memo summarizes the input we received from participating stakeholders specific to food security. It should be noted that while Hawaii does not meet the FAO's definition of a food insecure region, it is a sensitive and important issue for islands that rely quite heavily on imported food. Please access this summary here: http://typo3.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/fsn/docs/Biofuels/Paper_Liz_Muller.pdf I hope this summary is helpful. You can access the complete needs assessment report at http://www.hawaiibiofuelsfoundation.org/RSBNeedsAssessment.html. Please let me know if you have any questions. Best regards, Liz Muller www.lizmuller.com Mohamed Elhacen Ould KHOUNA, Mauritanie Les plantation de jatropha dans les champs abandonnées par exemple dans les zones désertiques jouent en rôle déterminants pour l’augmentation des zones de cultures et fixer les dunes de sables et favoriser une diversification agricole dans les zones désertiques ce qui améliore les cultures maraichères des légumes par exemple dans les zones des oasis la production des carottes et autres légumes jouent en très important rôle de sécurité alimentaire et une lutte contre la malnutrition dans ces zones. Toute cette question des cultures énergétiques en concurrence avec les cultures vivrières, afin de preuve de concept que les secteurs prives dans les domaines de cultures pour la production du carburant est sollicité d'une manière systématique et sans cruauté et peut effectivement promouvoir la sécurité alimentaire des communautés et l'autonomisation. En tant que tel, l'entreprise partir à un endroit éloigné qui a été à la fois difficile d'accès par la route, les gens de la région dépendait de la chasse comme un mode de vie et ils ont toujours eu les mauvaises récoltes. L'entrée dans la plantation de jatropha apporté une lueur d'espoir à la communauté. L'absence de consensus général entre les parties prenantes peut conduire à la disparition du projet, a mon avis je peux vous dire que le concept a été prouvé lors des échanges avec plusieurs partenaires des pays du Sahel pays du CILSS zones désertiques: une entreprise de biocarburants viable peut être exécuté et les collectivités peuvent être habilitées. Dr Mohamed Elhacen Ould Khouna English translation

The jatropha plantations on abandoned fields in the desert areas play a decisive role in increasing crop areas, fix sand dunes and favour agricultural diversification in the desert areas. This improves the cultivation of vegetables, such as the production of carrots and other vegetables in oases which in these areas play a very important role in food security and in the fight against malnutrition.

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As to the issue of energy crops competing with food crops: if appropriately requested, the private sector can effectively promote food security of the communities and their empowerment in the area of crop production for fuels. For instance, a company has moved to a remote location characterized by difficult road access where people’s living depended on hunting and poor harvests. Planting jatropha has brought a dawn of hope to the community. The lack of consensus among stakeholders can lead to the demise of the project. I think I can say that the concept has been proven in the exchanges with several partners from the Sahel countries, members of the “Comité permanent Inter-Etats de Lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel (CILSS): a company for sustainable biofuels can be set up and communities can be empowered. Craig Jamieson, independent consultant, UK Dear Andrea, I'm sending you my initial responses to your three questions below: 1. The criteria list many ways that can help increase food security, but I believe their inclusion in the RSB sustainability criteria would be impractical because:- a) They are all good things to do, but cannot be measured or enforced in any meaningful way. Best practice to inspire those who can impliment them - yes. Minimum criteria for certification - no. b) Any commodity crop, including food crops for export, can potentially create local food security issues. Imposing minimum requirements on biofuel producers and not others only adds to the unfair burdens on biofuels (and can create especially high barriers to entry for small scale producers). Either they won't join the RSB scheme or they won't use the crops for biofuels. Presumably neither of these outcomes is desirable for the RSB. 2. I think voluntary standards for certification can aim to help address food security /iLUC both at local and international levels but the approach given by the RSB is problematic for the reasons given above. I'm currently working to develop what's believed to be the world's first financial mechanism to address these issues in a measurable and market-focussed way. Biofuels are only a small part of the overall issues and it's essential that policy also addresses them. 3. Further work on practical implementation of good practice would be very beneficial, helping to stimulate more thought and innovation. Regards, Craig Jamieson London, UK Takayuki Kusajima from Toyota Motor Co, Japan Dear Mr. Rossi 2. I think voluntary standards should not include iLUC, because it is quite unclear and hard to prove particular business's fault. 3. Simple and easy lessons will be useful for producers to take care of avoiding the risk of iLUC. Generally speaking, I feel curious about these arguments aiming only for biofuel.

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Fundamentally, producing food or material for biofuel are the same on the view of agriculture. I think it is important to set EQUAL rule both for food and biofuel, and even for building city or other uses. Environmental standards or land use/change standards may be different country by country, so harmonization between these rules will be most important. Best Regards. Takayuki Kusajima Beau Damen from the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Thailand Dear Forum Members I would like to provide a late submission. Generally, I want to reinforce the importance of attaching a regional assessment to understanding the impact of biofuels developments on local food security as recommended in the Guidelines to Principle 6. I also wanted to second contributions from some in the forum who correctly note that protecting food security at a local level in the context of regional/global markets for biofuel feedstock and substitute commodities is going to be difficult. Most of my contribution to the forum relates to Principle 6b: In food insecure regions, biofuel operations shall enhance the local food security of the directly affected stakeholders. Regional food security scoping assessment necessary - regardless of food security status Firstly, in my opinion, a regional scoping exercise, as alluded to in the guidelines to Principle 6b and given effect in Principle 2, is essential to identify potential food insecurity hot spots and food security issues to be addressed. In addition, I believe that draft FAO indicators, which were the subject of the last forum, if adapted and applied to the regional level would provide the information and data complete such an exercise. But, while the focus on food insecure regions is apt, the principle seems to neglect the possibility that unsustainable biofuel development in a region considered food secure may also possibly lead to increased risk of food insecurity. This possible limitation should be reevaluated. While most countries in a given region may be considered largely food secure, this does not necessarily mean that there are not pockets of poverty and food insecurity and that the food security situation in these areas could affected by national or regional biofuel developments. Also, the nature of food security is not static. Changes in food prices can cause people to oscillate between states of food security and insecurity. As the true effects of biofuel development on commodity prices are still largely unknown, it is possible that biofuel developments, large in number or size and scale, or both, could unwittingly result in food insecurity in a once, relatively, food secure region. Recent developments in China and Southeast Asia could present an interesting future case in point. Due to the size and scale of China's biofuel industry and plans for further growth, two recent policy decisions have generated considerable biofuel related activity in the region that could have questionable impacts on food security. China is simultaneously placing restrictions on the use of coarse grains in biofuel production while lowering its ethanol tariff to 5% from 30%. This has created strong incentives for countries in the region to expand plans for cassava feedstock production and, even, ethanol production. For example, in response to the tariff announcement plans for two sizable ethanol plants have surfaced in Lao PDR and Cambodia both aiming to use locally grown cassava as feedstock. These developments are still at an early stage. But, their potential impact should be considered in the context of other regional developments.

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While cassava is not a staple food crop in the region, the BEFS Thailand analysis indicates that biofuel developments can potentially displace plantings of other crops. In Thailand's case the outlook produced for BEFS predicts that if its ambitious biofuel targets are met, rice plantings will decline. The resulting reduction in rice output will come at a time when growth in the population will lead to increased domestic rice consumption. Subsequently, Thai rice exports are predicted to halve by 2018. If there was a substantial regional shift toward biofuel feedstock production in response to demand from China combined with simultaneous declines in rice plantings and output it would not be unforeseeable that regional food availability and accessibility could be affected. The impact would be particularly acute in food insecure pockets like those in north and northeast Thailand, which were identified in the BEFS Thailand study. Regional assessment is a policy matter A regional scoping exercise would be an invaluable guide for policy makers and biofuel operators looking to protect food security by adherence to the RSB principles. The concept of establishing a principle similar to the RSB draft on “Indirect Impacts of Biofuels” is sound and would complement Principles 2 and 6. The regional food security scoping exercise would provide valuable data and information to assist decisions about how to offset any indirect impacts on food security at the national or regional levels. But I am very skeptical as to whether these instruments and the stipulation that they be carried out by biofuel operators would receive general support from the biofuel industry. On this issue I would tend to side with the operators. I feel it is unreasonable to hold biofuel operators fully responsible for meeting Principle 6b. It would also be unreasonable to place the full burden of meeting the criteria outlined in the draft principle on indirect impacts on food security on biofuel operators. This is because many of the threats to food security to arise from biofuel development will be the result of poorly conceived and coordinated government policies - which biofuel operators will then react to in the interest of making a profit. The role that governments play in subsidizing and facilitating the biofuel sector, the duty that governments hold toward their citizens and the growing interdependence of national economies means that Principle 6b should therefore be the responsibility of country governments, regional groupings and international organizations - or, in short, dealt with at the policy level. Indeed these organizations would likely be the only ones with the appropriate level of oversight to properly conduct an analysis that would meet the requirements of FAO’s draft indicators. However, this conclusion might complicate adherence to the principles, at least from a food security perspective, by making a public assessment a necessary condition of private biofuel development activities. Therefore, more thought would need to be given to how make this requirement work in practice. Cheers Beau Beau Damen Bioenergy Officer FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific Helga Vierich-Drever from Canada

Dear Colleagues; I would like to make a comment, having now read through all the proceedings of this discussion topic concerning biofuels and food security. I have been following the forum

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throughout and have given the topic a lot of thought, and I am sorry that my contribution comes so late.

There are certainly some positive aspects to biofuel production, in that liquid fuel of some kind will undoubtedly be required in the future in some economic activities as the industrialized world must cope with an inevitable on-going decline in petroleum suppies over the next several decades. I think some of the other aspects, such as improving the returns to investments in crops like soybeans, mentioned by Don Scott, (National Diesel Board, USA) are certainly very positive.

However, this is true only over the short term. The predominant kind of agriculture and livestock production system now generally in place in the industrialized and “emerging” economies will not persist once the supply of conventional petroleum falls below a certain level, although it may persist a bit longer in certain countries through rather unsavory arrangements between the producers of dwindling supplies and certain consumers. I say unsavory because such arrangements will likely be evoke the use of military or financial strategies that will disadvantage many of the least food-secure people on this planet.

Even if industrial scale agriculture were to continue, it could never produce enough biofuel to keep our current global system of transportation and trade going. Industrial agriculture requires the use of tractors, combine harvesters, trucks, and other large internal combustion engines. It is my understanding that in some instances, such as corn ethanol, the energy input required to for this machinery is barely less than the energy produced from the crop. I am attaching a PDF file containing a comprehensive analysis by Tad W. Patzek of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of California at Berkeley in California, which made this very clear, but can supply other documentation if anyone is interested in doing some further reading.

Some analysis has shown that the use of land to grow food is more efficient than growing biofuels (see “Food vs. fuel: Scientists say growing grain for food is more energy efficient“ http://www.physorg.com/news190917428.html). Obviously, use of soybeans, hemp, and other possible biofuel crops may have some added benefits as the bi-products of oil extraction to feed livestock or producing fiber for production of other materials will offset production costs. However, and this is critical, production of all potential biofuel crops on a scale envisioned by Campbell et. al. is dependant on liquid fuels and chemicals made from oil and natural gas. We will face, in future years, a relentless increase in the costs of petroleum, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Even if the usurpation of all open lands “unused” for crops were ethical or in any way justifiable on ecological grounds, it is likely to be futile from a thermodynamic perspective. (Although some firms might make some money on it in the short term.)

Why did I mention ethics? The fact that a great deal of “degraded” and marginal land in places like Africa and India are being bought up for biofuel production seems at first to be a benefit. After all, the land sales help the governments of these places financially, and the land would be “brought back” into production of a saleable commodity. This point is made in papers such as “Bioenergy potential of reviving abandoned agricultural land” by Elliott Campbell, Robert Genova, and Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, with David Lobell of Stanford University, published June 25 2008 in the online edition of Environmental Science and Technology. (See also the reports in http://www.physorg.com/news133616456.html) and this one “Abandoned farmlands are key to sustainable bioenergy” (http://www.physorg.com/news133443932.html). They estimated that there were some 4.7 million square kilometers of “abandoned, fallow, and pasture” lands globally. If all of this were cultivated to biofuels, they estimate it would amount to about 8% of current world oil consumption.

This paper, however, is critically deficient in terms of the authors’ apparent understanding of the kind of land use and land tenure systems operating throughout much of Africa and other parts of

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the world where land use is not industrialized. They appear completely oblivious to the fact that the term “fallow” and the term “abandoned” are hardly synonymous, nor is either term synonymous with “for sale” (about this I will have more to say in a moment.) Furthermore, wild “pasture” lands such as those they refer to glibly in Africa as “unused” are in fact entire ecosystems supporting some of the largest wildlife concentrations (biomass) left on the planet. These ecosystems have, moreover, frequently coexisted with, and supported, mobile human land use in the form of hunting and gathering and/or pastoralism for thousands of years. Just because expanding cropland globally should NOT be done by clearing forests, since this would be detrimental to the planet’s beleaguered carbon cycling, hardly justifies the conclusion that any currently nonforested ecosystems can by “put into crop production”!

Let us revisit the concept of “fallow” land for a moment. Campbell et. al. seem to use this term interchangeably with “abandoned”. Nothing could be further from truth. (In fact, I doubt there is any “abandoned” land anywhere on the planet, only land that people are currently not using in a way that shows up on satellite imagery!) “Fallow” land is part of a crop rotation. Farmers in long-fallow systems generally wait from 15 to as much as 30 years for forest regeneration to restore soil fertility. It is only then that such land is cleared for cultivation again.

Cultivated patches represented only about 20% of the village territory. The rest of the village lands were a mosaic of variable ecological value and diversity. This mosaic represented the stages of ecological succession. Each piece of the farmers’ lands passed through in the process of recovery of soil fertility consisting of stages: a) grassland, b) grassland with a lot of low scrub and young trees (pioneering species), c) secondary forest (young forest growth dominated by pioneering species), d) forest beginning to be dominated by climax trees, and finally e) old growth climax vegetation. All stages were productive; they were used for grazing livestock, gathering wild food plants, hunting wild game, securing medicinal plants, finding raw materials for making thatch roofs and mats, fencing materials, and finally for producing wood for various uses such as the making of chairs, beds, doorframes, drying and shading platforms, stockade fences, and for making wooden bowls, mortars and pestles, wooden spoons, and finally the wood and bark fibers used in making traditional wooden carvings for ritual, religious, and ceremonial purposes and costumes.

Ester Boserup (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ester_Boserup) wrote a book some years ago (1965), called The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change under Population Pressure. It was a brilliant analysis of the evolutionary relationship between food needs and agricultural intensity. One of her hypotheses is that long fallow systems (in dry land farming systems) are vulnerable to failure as population density increases, given that village territory is unusually limited.

As the food needs rise, more of the forest must be cleared and cultivated each year, until the point is reached when the fallow period is so shortened it cannot restore full fertility. Then even more land must be cultivated each year, and eventually land remains cleared and in cultivation permanently save for short periods of grass fallow when it might be turned over to grazing. At this point, however, inputs of manure and minerals must begin to enter the system, making the keeping of domestic livestock and the recycling of human waste and offal mandatory parts of the system. The use of animal traction and wheel carts at this point becomes cost effective.

Furthermore, to deal with the weed invasion that always accompanies this intensity of soil disturbance, clearing the land increasingly requires labor input, and at this point, animal traction to pull ploughs becomes a worthwhile investment. At which point the shift from long fallow horticulture to intensive agriculture is complete.

When I was in West Africa the process Boserup described was still just starting to occur in some highly populated rural areas. Plough oxen and draft equipment was just beginning to be used. Carts pulled by donkeys had entered the picture within the lifetime of individuals in their forties.

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Wealthier families were the ones most likely to be able to undertake a transition to these new technologies. This might eventually bring about some degree of social stratification based on land ownership, hand-in-hand with a transformation from traditional usufruct and communal ownership of land. This might eventually create landless classes or at least a class of rural poor whose plight becomes permanent. Formerly, each village I worked in had a traditional system of food production that included the production of planned surpluses produced under the direction of village lineage heads and chiefs, which was stored in special granaries for use in ceremonials and as a hedge against the occasional bad harvest or other calamity. There was a traditional system of local organization through these lineage heads to deal with disputes and to look after community projects such as the repair of bridges and roads. The vulnerable poor were looked after by their relatives and their communities, and food and other assistance was often made available to them so they could recover from the misfortune that had left them unable to feed themselves.

A great deal has been happening to change this system over the past century. Especially in the past fifty years, populations have often increased exponentially, as food aid, supplies of clean water, medical advances other development has permitted more children to survive even in poor rural communities. Traditional food production has faltered as land degraded because population growth has pressed rural farmers to use the land for too many harvests before allowing it to go fallow to restore fertility.

Moreover, too many livestock had kept the succession community from progressing beyond scrubland, and even this was barren. By the time I was working in the Sahel in the 1980’s, a lot of the ground that had once been cropland was like hard pavement and did not hold the rain that fell. Water ran off into gullies and there was great soil loss as well as a lot of water wasted as it surged away into the rivers and was carried away to the distant sea via the river Niger and others rivers. The condition of the land seems to have resulted from deforestation and over-cropping. This was worst in areas of high population and periodic drought (See ScienceDirect – “Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment : Changes in West African Savanna agriculture in response to growing population and continuing low rainfall” H.Vierich and W. Stoop, in Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment Volume 31, Issue 2, June 1990, Pages 115-132. See also UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6T3Y-48Y1W0T-DP/2/5d40e9b4061f72eda69ac1a44318dcd3 )

I was working at the time for one of the institutes of the Green Revolution, ICRISAT, trying to develop better methods of farming to relieve the poverty of the rural areas.

I fear that right now, due to the situation of rural poverty, and in some cases government corruption, there is a land grab going on by foreign companies. Some of this pressure is coming from China, perhaps doing this in order to use African plantations to grow food for their population back in Asia, since soil degradation and desertification is hitting China very hard right now as its population continues to grow and its cities continue to expand. However, some of this pressure is also coming from biofuel interests in Europe and the USA.

The International Energy Agency estimated last year that oil supply would begin to decline by 6% a year throughout the decade to come. World demand, especially from China and India, continues to rise, and this will drive up all the prices from fuel to transport to manufacturing. The world is already reeling from the first effects of economic contraction, which hit the older industrial nations (which still use by far the greatest amount of fuel on a per capita basis) very hard.

This process is likely to continue. Already this has led to initiatives to make Africa a major supplier of biofuels but I am not so sure that countries with problems of feeding millions of hungry rural poor should allow their lands to be taken over for this kind of production! How much farmland currently “fallow” (and perhaps mistaken considered therefore not be producing anything of use to the village) or even “abandoned” in Africa, (because of the kind of degradation due to over-

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cropping mentioned earlier) might still lie within the traditional lands of many small rural villages? My answer – plenty! This land would surely be better used for food production (through erosion control and permaculture methods perhaps), and returned to benefit these villages! Just because there is degraded and “abandoned” land, that does not make it free land that governments can sell to corporations so they can make money on biofuels, surely!

There is another book I would recommend to your attention: William Catton's magnum opus: Overshoot: the ecological basis of revolutionary change (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Catton,_Jr), published in 1980, is well worth a look. It is a bit frightening, though. His analysis indicates that the use of fossil fuels - especially in agriculture - has permitted the human population on this planet to overshoot the long term carrying capacity of this planet. The overshoot is not trivial - it is spectacular and ominous.

The Green Revolution miracle was, however, based on more than higher yielding varieties - it was also based on mechanization, the use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides, and improved agronomic practices. Almost all of these were made possible by the availability of ever-increasing amounts of cheap oil and natural gas. Natural gas is the base stock for most chemical fertilizer, and oil is not only what powers the tractors and combine harvesters, it also is transformed into the various chemicals in herbicides, pesticides, fumigants, and fungicides. Even GM crops are not more productive than previous varieties, they are merely more efficient in that they require fewer inputs (until the weeds and insects evolve resistance, which has not taken very long, apparently). Furthermore, they are just as dependent on chemical fertilizers and steady water supply as conventional commercial varieties. And they have other drawbacks, apparently (see Argentina's Roundup Human Tragedy; Mad Soy Disease Strikes Brazil; The GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops | Mail Online; Genetically modified brinjal unsafe; "Eat GMO Food Or STARVE!" 14 Million Facing Starvation Unless Governments Accept GMO Food Aid MANOAH ESIPIU (Johannesburg) Reuters 28jul02, Large concentrations of GM DNA found in soil food web).

The final question is whether the level of degradation of our planetary resources has already gone past critical limits for replenishment - a very real issue for things like soil, water, marine creatures, and forests. Many are beginning to fear that the answer to that question is negative (see Revisiting The Limits to Growth: Could The Club of Rome Have Been Correct, After All?; Book Bytes - 92: Civilization’s Foundation Eroding | EPI; BBC News - Sting in the tail of farming revolution; Where Has All The Water Gone?: Scientific American; U.N. report: Eco-systems at 'tipping point' - CNN.com; World's rivers in 'crisis state', report finds; Groundwater depletion rate accelerating worldwide; YouTube - Sylvia Earle: How to protect the oceans (TED Prize winner!); Jeremy Jackson: How we wrecked the ocean | Video on TED.com; Ending the oceans' 'tragedy of the commons'; Ocean Acidification | Renewable Energy Business Consulting and Investment Services; Peak soil: it's like peak oil, only worse | Energy Bulletin; Environmental and Economic Costs of Soil Erosion and Conservation Benefits -- Pimentel et al. 267 (5201): 1117 -- Science; The Anthropik Network » Agriculture: Demon Engine of Civilization; SpringerLink - Environment, Development and Sustainability, Volume 3, Number 1; Soil food web - opening the lid of the black box | Energy Bulletin; Ecology in the Underworld -- Sugden et al. 304 (5677): 1613 -- Science; Conventional plowing is 'skinning our agricultural fields'; agricuture unsustainable - Blog - John Feeney; Biodiversity conservation and agricultural sustainability: towards a new paradigm of ‘ecoagriculture’ landscapes — Philosophical Transactions B; Chinese soil experts warn of massive threat to food security - SciDev.Net.

Worse, oil is not the only nonrenewable resource we are drawing down at alarming rates: see for example Hot political summer as China throttles rare metal supply and claims South China Sea - Telegraph; Diminishing phosphorus threatens world's agriculture - SciDev.Net; Calculating Agriculture\'s Phosphorus Footprint - Environment - an eLab Article at Scientist Live; Peak P? Phosphorus, food supply spurs Southwest initiative; Mining the Truth on Coal Supplies.

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In summary, I would like to suggest that investments in biofuels, which will hardly make much dent in meeting the world’s petroleum shortfalls in years to come, could actually do more harm than good in places like parts of Africa already food-insecure. This will possibly further imperil already vulnerable people in poorer countries by removing useful grazing land, wild plant and animal food sources, cutting people off from their sources of building material and firewood sources, and, most importantly, by canceling – often without consultation - the chances that these villagers might reclaim these lands for food production through improved agronomic and perma-culture techniques.

Sincerely, Helga Vierich (Canada)

Concluding remark by Andrea Rossi, topic raiser Dear experts, On behalf of the BEFSCI project team, I would like to thank all of you for the insightful and constructive contributions you have provided to this complex discussion. You may continue to send your comments and inputs until January 31 to the FSN Forum moderator (fsn-moderator@fao.org) or directly to the BEFSCI team (BEFSCI-Project@fao.org). The outcomes of this discussion, which will be shared with the RSB team, will contribute to inform FAO’s inputs to the RSB and other similar processes. Please visit the BEFSCI web-site (http://www.fao.org/bioenergy/foodsecurity/befsci/en/) regularly to keep track of progress in the development of BEFSCI’s criteria, indicators, good practices and policy options on sustainable bioenergy production that fosters rural development and food security. Thanks. Best regards, Andrea Rossi Natural Resources Management Officer (Bioenergy) Bioenergy and Food Security Criteria and Indicators (BEFSCI) Project Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00153 Rome - Italy www.fao.org/bioenergy/foodsecurity/befsci