This, courtesy of the Financial Times, is a welcome development. Hopefully, the Doha Round of the GATT will get restarted, and this can be addressed in addition to the more general discussion of agricultural subsidies.
'OECD warns against biofuels subsidies'
Biofuels subsidies will only lead to increased food costs and habitat destruction 25
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Posted 10:31 AM on 11 Sep 2007
by Jason D Scorse -
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Read More About
Jason Scorse, PhD
Associate Professor
Chair of the International Environmental Policy Program
Monterey Institute of International Studies
Institute Webpage: http://www.miis.edu/academics/faculty/node/936
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:11 am
11 Sep 2007
The survey says biofuels would cut energy-related emissions by 3 per cent at most. This benefit would come at a huge cost, which would swiftly make them unpopular among taxpayers.
The study estimates the US alone spends $7bn (€5bn) a year helping make ethanol, with each tonne of carbon dioxide avoided costing more than $500. In the EU, it can be almost 10 times that.
As long as environmental values are not adequately priced [water, carbon, biodiversity] in the market, there will be powerful incentives to replace natural eco-systems such as forests, wetlands and pasture with dedicated bio-energy crops
The report recommends governments phase out biofuel subsidies, using "technology-neutral" carbon taxes instead to allow the market to find the most efficient ways of reducing greenhouse gases
The EU has said only biofuels that meet as yet undefined standards for sustainability will count towards its target to get a tenth of transport fuel from plants by 2020. Tariff discrimination on sustainability grounds is illegal under World Trade Organisation rules and the authors call for talks at the WTO to set up a global certification scheme.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:34 am
11 Sep 2007
And even the Brazilian sugar is tenuous because it means that it's replacing farmland and cerrados in Brazil.
If you push out the farmers, they still need to eat, so they will likely just hack the rainforrest to pieces to get some new land.
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tnewman Posted 4:41 am
11 Sep 2007
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Jonas Posted 4:48 am
11 Sep 2007
In short, the guys over at Biopact (I'm one of them) are being proved right once again.
Their vision is now backed by: the FAO, the WorldWatch Institute, Joseph Stiglitz, the Brazilian socialists, the IEA and now the OECD.
Americans and Europeans must stop subsidizing their inefficient and expensive biofuels and start importing biofuels that make sense. It's a win-win operation.
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waterman Posted 5:03 am
11 Sep 2007
What about algae as a basis for ethanol as a basis for biodiesel as promoted by for example http://www.oilgae.com?
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:23 am
11 Sep 2007
What about algae as a basis for ethanol as a basis for biodiesel as promoted by for example http://www.oilgae.com?
Even Algae, while better, is still pretty unlikely.
http://greyfalcon.net/algae
http://greyfalcon.net/algae2
http://greyfalcon.net/algae3
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/ate/story?i ...
_
Not to mention, if it's joined at the hip to coal power plants, it's not much different than an elaborate coal-to-liquids process.
_
When it all comes down to it, photosynthesis itself is limited to a maximum theoretical limit of 11% solar efficiency.
Realistically the starting point is more like 3-8% for Algae.
Much of which is lost when you turn it from a solid into a liquid.
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Sam Wells Posted 7:13 am
11 Sep 2007
What concerns me - and anybody knows this if you've been around sugar cane - is the the tops are burned off before harvesting. Oops, major carbon release! Then large diesel tractors are used to chop the remaining tops into hopper which is occasionally dumped into a large heavy-duty tractor trailer (double carbon whammy?). The tractor hauls the sugar cane to the sugar cane factory, where the leaves are peeled. The central cane is where the sugar is, so any leaf material is used got boiler fuel, a product known as "bagasse." Oops, a wee bit more waste carbon there, huh?
The sugar is now a raw sugar that is trucked to refiners such as Domino that turn it into white rain sugar, confectioners sugar, and so forth. Nothing is wasted so the chopped cane that was pressed, boiled, and squeezed even gets burned!
So ... tell me, is making alcohol from semi-refined and refined sugar really all that great?
Onward through the fog
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Biodiversivist Posted 7:20 am
11 Sep 2007
I find it interesting, Jonas, how you manage to twist every negative report on agrofuels to support of your vision that third world countries should feed their biodiversity to our cars.
The report clearly states:
Today, only three kinds of biofuels are preferable to oil, the study says: Brazilian sugar, which converts easily to ethanol, the by-products of paper-making, and used vegetable oil.
The report also clearly states:
As long as environmental values are not adequately priced in the market, there will be powerful incentives to replace natural eco-systems such as forests, wetlands and pasture with dedicated bio-energy crops
Read the link provided by tnewman:
Authorities said the raid would be Brazil's biggest to date against debt slavery if preliminary findings by investigators are confirmed.
Under the practice, common in the Amazon, poor laborers are lured to remote spots where they rack up debts to plantation owners who charge exorbitant prices for everything from food to transportation.
But the Amazon plantation's owner -- the biggest ethanol producer in the northeastern state of Para -- vigorously denied the charges Tuesday and said the workers make good money by Brazilian standards.
Then go read this one and this one.
To date, your game plan is turning the poor people of the world into wage slaves for industrial agrofuels while supporting the destruction of what remains of the planet's biodiversity. Your hope is that trend can be stopped and reversed.
Agrofuels are eating biodiversity, destroying carbon sinks, increasing global warming, the price of food and enslaving the poor. Your entire plan is based on agrofuels being a net positive for global warming. They aren't. Your whole biofuel scheme is a house of cards, converting carbon sinks into cane ethanol is a contributor to global warming.
http://environment.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn12496/dn12496-1_650.jpg
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Ron Steenblik Posted 7:58 am
11 Sep 2007
There are no doubt people working for the OECD Secretariat who would agree with the paper, but the OECD as an institution -- as a club of nations -- certainly has not endorsed the paper.
The paper (which at this stage was meant to be a discussion paper and revised before being published) was produced for a body that is largely independent of the OECD -- ambiguously called the OECD Round Table on Sustainable Development -- a talking shop for Ministers of Environment, Finance and Trade. Industry, NGO and intergovernmental organizations are also represented.
Tonight was the pre-meeting dinner, and the two guest speakers were Prof. Jack Saddler of the University of British Columbia, and Prof. Tadeusz Patzek of the University of California, Berkeley. Tad was brilliant.
Tomorrow morning (Paris time) the Round Table meets to discuss a series of questions regarding the technical and economic potential of biofuels, environmental effects, trade and so forth. If I have time, tomorrow, I'll write some reflections on how the discussions went.
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Biodiversivist Posted 8:38 am
11 Sep 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:35 am
11 Sep 2007
Heh, well speaking of California Berkeley researchers, David Fridley, one of Tad Patzek's colleagues over there now has this video out of one of his recent talks.
The Myths of BioFuels.
Dennis Brumm put it together with a lot of computer visuals, and I think it should be worth watching.
It should be finding it's way on youtube/google video sooner or later. Although you could order one now for $7 on paypal incase your interested.
(i.e. The cost to simply make and send it)
I'll keep people posted when the web version comes out.
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Jonas Posted 1:01 am
12 Sep 2007
The OECD report on biofuel subsidies was commissioned by the government of Sweden.
I see a link...
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Jonas Posted 1:15 am
12 Sep 2007
You don't hear these stories in the press let alone in environmentalists circles, but that's because of a selective myopia - the media systematically refuse to deal with good news.
Just look at how selective the reporting about Ron's analysis is, and you see the obvious: nobody reports on the fact that many biofuels have a sustainable profile (as can be seen in the reference to the Swiss Institute's LCA) and that the market must be liberalised.
We look at both sides and include the social opportunities biofuels offer. You seem to be sticking to a narrow eurocentric perspective without having a clue about the material conditions in which 1 billion farmers in the South live.
With all respect to Ron Steenblik, but when the chief of the FAO says that biofuels offer a unique opportunity to lift millions of farmers out of poverty, we take note. Ron does so too, but in a footnote, so to speak.
Our perspective is just different from that of most environmentalists who are willing to keep millions in poverty. You have to accept that there is room for other views. We stress points that go beyond strictly environmental issues, because we think the debate is much larger than that.
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Jonas Posted 3:07 am
12 Sep 2007
Biodiversivist, you know very well that sugarcane is not grown on tropical rainforest land. So stop spreading false information. The IEA has clearly states that the fuel is environmentally sustainable (replacing one species of grass with a much more productive one is hardly problematic).
Here: http://www.bioenergytrade.org/downloads/sustainabilityofb ...
Secondly, take a look at the LCA of 20 biofuels conducted by the Swiss Institute. It shows that around 10 of them can be thoroughly called sustainable and reduce carbon emissions by more than 30% (10 of them).
Here:
http://www.bfe.admin.ch/php/modules/publikationen/stream. ...
Thirdly, you know very well that trees and forests are not a magic bullet and that many of them speed up global warming.
"The study found that a global replacement of current vegetation by trees would lead to a global warming of 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 degrees Celsius).
Global replacement with grassland led to cooling of about 0.7 degrees F (.38 degrees C)."
You know which study this is: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Université Montpellier II, and the Carnegie Institution.
Here: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2006/2006-12-12-02.asp ...
But in the end, the narrowly defined environmental balance of biofuels is the least of our worries. Energy security and the socio-economic potential are much more important. Without these two, the environment suffers far more.
You know all this. It would be nice to see you accepting the fact that things are more complex than that simplistic graph you keep referring to.
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Biodiversivist Posted 4:33 am
12 Sep 2007
"faits divers", an untranslatable rubric used in the French press for everyday-life news stories.
but there are just as many stories about farmers who - for the first time in their lives - can feed their family and send their kids to school because they have just leased their land to a biofuel firm or because they have been able to tap a booming market.
There is no doubt in my mind that examples like this exist. They have to exist, there are over six billion people on the planet, but they may also be transient. A farmer who goes into dept has put himself and his family at risk. All the same, you need to take the effort to show at least three independent links to match mine to back up your words that there are just as many stories, or they are just words.
Explain to me one more time, actually, for the first time, after multiple requests, how the small farmers will compete over time with industrial agrofuel? This is just one missing link in your argument. Refusing to address them does not make your argument stronger because I will continue to point them out.
You don't hear these stories in the press let alone in environmentalists circles, but that's because of a selective myopia - the media systematically refuse to deal with good news.
I know just how you feel. When I first started critiquing this agrofuel hysteria a few years ago, my Google searches could not find any bad news about it. That is about the time you bought into the idea because all you were reading was good news. You didn't apply any critical thought. You just ran with the herd. The herd is changing direction. It takes time to turn a herd this big. Take a gander at this Google search on the word biofuel.
nobody reports on the fact that many biofuels have a sustainable profile (as can be seen in the reference to the Swiss Institute's LCA)
What? Links please. How "many" is "many?"
We look at both sides and include the social opportunities biofuels offer. You seem to be sticking to a narrow eurocentric perspective without having a clue about the material conditions in which 1 billion farmers in the South live.
Not really. First, I live in America. Next, its comical that you just accused me of not being aware of third world poverty. I am all for efforts to alleviate poverty that do not involve schemes like slaughtering the last elephants for their meat and ivory (non-sustainable solutions). You find a sustainable biofuel that does not exacerbate the destruction of the planet's remaining biodiversity and carbon sinks and I will fully support it.
but when the chief of the FAO says that biofuels offer a unique opportunity to lift millions of farmers out of poverty, we take note.
You really shouldn't have to wait for the "chief" to say anything to take note of potential solutions to relieve poverty. You just need to keep in mind that it is only a potential, not a sure bet.
Our perspective is just different from that of most environmentalists who are willing to keep millions in poverty.
Nice try. "If you don't support agrofuels you are deliberately locking millions into poverty." How is this for a counter? "By supporting agrofuels you are providing an incentive for wealthy power brokers to rob the poor of their land and lock millions into a brutal life as wage slave farm hands on industrial agrofuel farms to feed our cars."
You see, Jonas, you have to accept that there is room for other views.
We stress points that go beyond strictly environmental issues, because we think the debate is much larger than that.
Right, as if we don't all know that. You seem to have lost track of the fact that this happens to be an envrionmental forum, not a poverty reduction forum or an investment forum, although poverty reduction and economics are all important and all things relate in some way to environment. So, if your thing is poverty reduction, get on with it. I sincerely hope future efforts at poverty reduction in the south are more successful than past ones.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Jonas Posted 6:17 am
12 Sep 2007
Potential Contribution of Bioenergy to the Worlds Future Energy Demand, Sept. 2007.
http://www.ieabioenergy.com/MediaItem.aspx?id=5586
Potential for sustainable production is huge: 1100 Exajoules by 2050; 20 to 50% of world energy demand over the longer term. Of this, liquid biofuels: 130-260 EJ, more than total current mineral oil production.
But of course nobody is going to report on this, because it's a scientifically sound and rather optimistic report.
Gristmill won't report on this either.
I have given up all hope for a fair debate. I will stick to science instead. No more journalism for me.
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Jonas Posted 6:28 am
12 Sep 2007
I happen to think that poverty is related to environmental issues.
If we can help the millions of famers in the South to utilize modern farming techniques (ordinary dirty fertilizers, dirty pesticides, etc...), then the interrelated problems of food insecurity, energy insecurity and deforestation can be addressed.
Modern bioenergy production, strengthening livelihoods (by improving market access and export opportunitites) and poverty alleviation efforts all go hand in hand.
Leaky recently put it in a nice way: environmentalists from the West cry over dead gorillas and bushmeat in the Congo, but they fail to see that the real cause behind this problem is a fuel crisis and a lack of modern energy. This pushes the poor ever deeper into the forest and back to hunting, and keeps them relying on primitive biomass use. If you were to bring income to them (can be got by making them into biofuel farmers) and modern farming techniques, the crisis could be alleviated.
Biodiversivist, you know all this.
Our goal is to boost the social strength of farming populations in the South, so that they can live decent lives, which includes reducing their pressures on the environment. The biofuels opportunity is just one of the options that can bring them better livelihoods. If you know a better option, please say so.
You asked for a demonstration of how smallholders can compete with big agro-industry. Just look at the palm oil sector in Indonesia: 1 million smallholders there compete with a handful of giants. 50% of the palm sector's output there is owned by smallholders. This will be the case for many perennial crops that will be grown for energy across the South.
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Biodiversivist Posted 7:24 am
12 Sep 2007
I scoured my post for the words "tropical rainforest land" and came up empty. That makes your statement a strawman, which you then built upon by admonishing me to "stop spreading false information." The technique works well in verbal debate because most people don't have photographic memories but on internet debates, where it is easily countered by simply cutting and pasting, the technique tends to weaken one's credibility.
Some examples of sugarcane expansion in Brazil and in Africa.
"The cerrado is now disappearing more than twice as the rate [sic] as the neighboring Amazon rainforest ...Yoweri Museveni, is this week pressing ahead with plans to give a large chunk of one of the country's last protected forests [read rain forest land] to a sugar cane company so it can expand its operations."
...replacing one species of grass with a much more productive one is hardly problematic.
You have got to be kidding me. Converting the Cerrado into rows of monocrop cane replete with fertilizers and pesticides is hardly problematic?
The link you provide says:
While the current study contains many different types of uncertainties, no prohibitive reasons where identified why ethanol from São Paulo principally could not meet the Dutch sustainability standards set for 2007
For the future and the whole of Brazil, too many uncertainties remain to determine whether also additional criteria from 2011 onwards can be met. First of all, it is as yet unclear how additional land use for sugar cane may cause indirect / induced land-use, and how large the actual impacts will be on land use, biodiversity etc. Second, it is also uncertain whether and how the Dutch sustainability criteria will deal with these indirect impacts, as these criteria are not yet clearly defined.
Sugarcane has been grown in Sao Paulo for well over two centuries. It approaches sustainable only because it displaced 80% of the Atlantic Forest [read rain forest land] long ago. You have confused cane ethanol in general, with cane ethanol grown specifically in Sao Paulo. In addition, their assessment is only for the year 2007. If San Paulo starts to import and then resell ethanol from the Cerrado they will rethink the situation.
Secondly, take a look at the LCA of 20 biofuels conducted by the Swiss Institute. It shows that around 10 of them can be thoroughly called sustainable and reduce carbon emissions by more than 30% (10 of them).
I just did. The word sustainable did not appear anywhere in the report. They simply measured environmental impacts against fossil fuels, including CO2 reduction. The best performing fuels were waste products like sewage.
The largest reductions were attained with biofuels made from liquid manure. The other fuels that had GHG reductions of more than 50% were: biodiesel made from waste cooking oil, methanol and methane from wood and bioethanol from domestic biomass (grass, wood, sugar beets or whey), Brazilian sugar cane and Chinese sorghum. 9 fuels (four of which were from waste materials) still had a GHG reduction of more than 30%, one of them produced from biodiesel made from various agricultural products (soy oil US, palm oil MY, rapeseed oil CH) and the fermentation of various waste material to biogenic methane.
Currently, of all the production paths investigated, it is especially the use of biogenic wastes ranging from grass to wood that brings a reduction in environmental impact as compared with petrol.
It also said this:
Although biofuels from renewable resources exist, a wider range of environmental impacts may result from their cultivation and processing than those from fossil fuels. These range from excessive fertilizer use and acidification of soil to a loss of biodiversity caused by slash and burning rainforest. Besides that, one should not forget that expanding agricultural energy production may lead to land use conflicts with other land uses such as food production or the conservation of natural areas. Therefore energetic efficiency and the attainable reduction in greenhouse gases should not be taken as the sole criteria for a holistic environmental evaluation of these alternative fuels.
Currently, of all the production paths investigated, it is especially the use of biogenic wastes ranging from grass to wood that brings a reduction in environmental impact as compared with petrol. Since the potential of domestic bioenergy today is limited - and will be so in future - bioenergy will not solve our energy problems. However it if the available biomass is transformed into energy in an efficient and environmentally friendly manner, while at the same time consumption is reduced and energy efficiency in-creased, these alternative energy carriers can together with other forms of renewable energy play a role in our future energy supply that should not be neglected....
And finally,
Thirdly, you know very well that trees and forests are not a magic bullet and that many of them speed up global warming.
The study found that a global replacement of current vegetation by trees would lead to a global warming of 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 degrees Celsius)...Global replacement with grassland led to cooling of about 0.7 degrees F (.38 degrees C)." ...You know which study this is: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Université Montpellier II, and the Carnegie Institution.
And exactly who is proposing that we replace all the planet's existing vegetation with trees? As you may recall, I corrected your numerous misinterpretations of that report once before, here
here and
here.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Ron Steenblik Posted 8:58 am
12 Sep 2007
Some of Jonas' points:
Potential for sustainable production is huge: 1100 Exajoules by 2050; 20 to 50% of world energy demand over the longer term. Of this, liquid biofuels: 130-260 EJ, more than total current mineral oil production. But of course nobody is going to report on this, because it's a scientifically sound and rather optimistic report.
Without getting too much into the arcane of intergovernmental institutions, the "IEA report" to which Jonas provides a link is actually a report by André Faaij, for the IEA's "Task 40: Sustainable International Bioenergy Trade - Securing Supply and Demand" (which in turn is part of the IEA's energy technology and R&D collaboration programme), and which he leads. André is a great guy. But, just like anybody working on biofuels, he has to make assumptions in arriving at his projections of potential supply -- e.g., price trajectories for feedstocks, oil prices, yield improvements, etc., and those assumptions are still the subject of considerable debate. I'll leave it at that.
The government of Sweden has just signed a deal with Brazil, in which it slashes the EU tariff on imported ethanol. The OECD report on biofuel subsidies was commissioned by the government of Sweden. I see a link...
Each one of these sentences is not quite right. First, Sweden's external tariff on imported ethanol, as for any other good, is determined by Brussels (i.e., the European Commission), not Stockholm. Sweden would like the tariff eliminated, but it has to convince 26 other EU Member States to do that also. See this news story, which states:
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said his country will continue pressuring the EU to drop the duty. [President Luiz Inacio Lula da] Silva welcomed Sweden's initiative and said: "Sooner or later we will reduce the tariffs to zero on ethanol imports."
Second, from where do you surmise that the OECD report on biofuel subsidies (do you mean the paper for the OECD Round Table on Sustainable Development?) was commissioned by the Government of Sweden? That's news to me. Finally, there are no links: Sweden understands the need to drop tariff barriers to ethanol trade. So do we (my co-author and I.) So do a lot of people.
Just look at the palm oil sector in Indonesia: 1 million smallholders there compete with a handful of giants. 50% of the palm sector's output there is owned by smallholders. This will be the case for many perennial crops that will be grown for energy across the South.
A condition that the Indonesian government imposes nowadays when it grants concessions to palm-oil plantations is that they must devote a certain amount of the land they receive to creating small holdings. These are typically set up just outside the perimeters of the plantations. The companies are also obliged to buy a certain amount of their palm kernels from these growers, as these growers would otherwise face a pure monopsonist: few have access to any other outlets. I'd hardly call that "competing" with the giants.
Let's not delude ourselves: any increase in returns to agriculture in developing countries will primarily benefit land-owners, and in many countries the distribution of land ownership is highly concentrated. That does not mean that producing biofuels on a large, commercial scale in Africa or Latin America, say, will not generate new jobs in that sector. But most of those jobs will either be for farm workers or factory workers, not small farmers.
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Jonas Posted 10:25 am
12 Sep 2007
The report I refer to was indeed released by the IEA's Bioenergy Executive Committee (not a report really, an overview of the current state of research on the global bioenergy potential). Faaij may be a great guy, to me he is simply the most authoritative guy on the subject. I have seen quite a few analyses on the global technical biomass potential, and those coming out of the Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development (to which Faaij belongs) are the most thoroughly researched.
The assumptions may be open for debate, but this implies that the overall discussion on bioenergy is so too. In other words, this is not a foreclosed debate, as some would have it. If optimistic scenarios point to a large sustainable potential, and they sketch the interventions needed to arrive at this potential, then it is legitimate to make a case in favor of biofuels. That's all I do: list the interventions needed, and then be optimistic. Lots of if's, but the case in itself is legitimate.
There are people who consistently make a case against biofuels based on the scenarios showing a low potential. That's legitimate too. I say: they are denying farmers in the South a great opportunity to develop. Ron knows that the FAO director-general thinks that biofuels offer a great opportunity for development, because he quotes him in his report. And yes, when the FAO 'chief' says so, I tend to think there may be something to it. In an open debate, authority arguments count too.
Each one of these sentences is not quite right. First, Sweden's external tariff on imported ethanol, as for any other good, is determined by Brussels (i.e., the European Commission), not Stockholm. Sweden would like the tariff eliminated, but it has to convince 26 other EU Member States to do that also.
Okay, I was pointing to an AP story:
"We want to take away this tax as fast as possible," he added, with the move expected to take effect on January 1, 2009.
What does this mean? Is Sweden going to get rid of this tax unilaterally? Or does the minister think he can convince the EU by 2009 to get rid of it? Or are we talking about a different tax, perhaps?
In any case, Sweden wants to get rid of the import tariff and has asked the OECD to study biofuel subsidies.
Ron wrote:
Second, from where do you surmise that the OECD report on biofuel subsidies was commissioned by the Government of Sweden? That's news to me.
I found this here:
Dutch Secretary of Economic Affairs Frank Heemskerk and his Swedish counterpart have announced they want the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to study unfair subsidies for biofuels and their economic effects.
Ron, you can read Dutch, so you understand the title of that article:
"OESO onderzoek naar subsidie biobrandstoffen" [OECD research into biofuel subsidies]
A condition that the Indonesian government imposes nowadays when it grants concessions to palm-oil plantations is that they must devote a certain amount of the land they receive to creating small holdings. These are typically set up just outside the perimeters of the plantations. The companies are also obliged to buy a certain amount of their palm kernels from these growers, as these growers would otherwise face a pure monopsonist: few have access to any other outlets.
Oh, but long before this obligation and in many countries where it doesn't apply, palm oil companies outsource the actual production of palm fruit to small holdings, simply because it makes commercial sense. Virtually all new jatropha ventures I'm aware of work with the same good old system (take D1Oils, the largest of them all): small outgrowers get the inputs from the company, tend trees on their own land, and get paid for the feedstock they deliver. This is a pretty standard way of doing business across the tropics. In fact, it's pretty good, because it allows farmers to tap into highly productive systems, and they learn plantation management skills (obviously a high productivity is in the interest of the company buying the feedstock).
Sure, it's not competition in a strict sense, but I'm not a sophist. What interests me is whether the thing as a whole brings increased incomes to these farmers (they're farmers since they grow the crops on their own lands and can fully independently decide to step out of the scheme, if the contract allows this, which it often does).
Does this state of affairs bring new, better incomes to small holders? Yes it does. Have they profited greatly from increased palm oil prices? Yes they have.
Of course it would be better if they formed cooperatives and gained control over more processing and value adding steps. But there are quite a few cooperatively owned palm oil ventures on this globe who do just that (processing), just like there are a large number of cooperatives for the vast bulk of tropical agricultural commodities who do (the coffee I'm drinking now is made by one). I'm sure there are detailed numbers on this, will look into them.
If, in the case of biofuels, this needs a sort of 'fair trade' system, then let's do it. I'm sure that with ever rising oil prices, tropical biofuels will remain competitive even with such a system in place.
Moreover, governments play a key role here and must encourage the creation of biofuel cooperatives or systems that divide the cake a bit better. The Brazilian Pro-Biodiesel program is an example in case. 60,000 farmers and their families, all of them members of cooperatives and the powerful farmer unions, grow feedstock for the large companies. Each player gets a share of the cake. The farmers won't get rich, but at least they're getting out of poverty.
You may think that all this is idealistic. I see several governments turning this idealism into hard policy.
Let's not delude ourselves: any increase in returns to agriculture in developing countries will primarily benefit land-owners, and in many countries the distribution of land ownership is highly concentrated.
Sorry, but this is not entirely correct. Are there problems with formal land rights? Yes, in many countries. Does the vast bulk of land in the vast bulk of tropical countries belong to the vast group of small farmers who enjoy their customary rights and know very well how to keep control over them? Absolutely so.
Everyone who has ever visited a Sub-Saharan African country, you would know that the village chiefs are in full control over the land. Not some clique of foreign or local land lords. That's Brazil and South Africa you're referring too - two exceptional countries where a colonial class still rules, a class that in all other former colonies left ages ago.
Ron, maybe you should read this interesting BBC story, about a small Indonesian farmer who leased his land to a biofuel company (the fact that the BBC shows such a nuanced story can be called a unique feat):
Life is a lot sweeter for Mangat Nuan these days
This man represents the vast majority of smallholders in Indonesia.
To conclude: I don't have control over the means of production either, I work for a boss who does. I would have preferred it differently. But does this state of affairs always imply exploitation? I don't think so. At least many farmers in the South are in full control of their land (the most basic means of production). What they lack is far more intangible: access to markets, access to farming inputs, infrastructures, cheap and abundant fuel, global trade rules that are fair and just, strong marketing instruments, etc...
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GreyFlcn Posted 12:05 pm
12 Sep 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnwynyKc4Cw
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Ron Steenblik Posted 1:04 pm
12 Sep 2007
You describe the problem exactly when you contrast those who take a conservative approach to modifying the biosphere and those who "make the case" for using up virtually every spare amount of biomass for energy for humans -- in some researchers' cases through assumptions like "if we move all livestock production in-doors, we can free up a huge amount of grassland for bio-energy". We're talking big, big numbers here that are sensitive to some critical assumptions. Having been around a lot of people who work in this area, I am skeptical of enthusiasts and respectful of those who approach the issue with a cold, hard eye.
I agree that there is some potential for increased use of biomass for energy -- particularly in developing countries (and that current northern policies, such as high tariffs on ethanol, are denying developing countries export opportunities). But a lot of that will come from more efficient use of biomass, such as through switching from three-stone fires for cooking to improved solid-fuel stoves.
You are mixing up Sweden's joint call with the Netherlands for the OECD to do work on barriers to trade in biofuels with the paper that is being commented on in this string. There is no connection.
I'm sorry that the AP story is muddled, but what is at stake is the import tariff, and that is set at the EU level, not by Sweden. There is no other "tax" on ethanol that Brazil wants Sweden to eliminate. Brazil has been working closely with Sweden because Sweden would dearly like the EU policy to be changed, and quickly.
I was contrasting the reality of plantation production in Indonesia with your assertion that smallholders were competing on an even footing with large, politically powerful land-holders. They aren't, at least not in Indonesia. (We have a study of the situation in that country coming out later this year.) That is not to deny the possibility that there could be lots of places where, through careful husbandry, well-managed, village-scale bio-energy projects could improve the lives of the rural poor in a number of developing countries.
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NonprofitWatch Posted 1:12 pm
12 Sep 2007
The press release is at
http://www.ifg.org/pdf/biofuels%20press%20release_final.p ...
Apparently there'll be a press conference on Friday with
Dr. Jack Santa Barbara, former Canadian businessman and director of the Sustainable
Scale Project. Author of The False Promise of Biofuels.
* Dr. David Pimentel, professor of agricultural sciences at Cornell University and author
of 23 books.
* Dr. Tadeus Patzek, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of
California at Berkeley, and a former petroleum engineer for Shell Development in
Houston.
The teach-in should be interesting, featuring a wide variety of speakers, including Bill McKibben, Vandana Shiva, Frances Moore Lappé,
Martin Khor, Michael Klare, Maude Barlowe, and Ross Gelbspan and many others.
bernardo issel - http://www.NonprofitWatch.org -
bernardo (at) NonprofitWatch.org
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Biodiversivist Posted 8:47 am
13 Sep 2007
The paper you linked to rated Brazilian soy biodiesel the most environmentally destructive and (non sustainable) of all that they investigated.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:32 pm
13 Sep 2007
http://www.ifg.org/pdf/biofuels%20press%20release_final.p ...
Even if they spelled it "Emmisioins"
Guess thats why it's a Press copy.
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