Impact of Increased Bioenergy Demand on Communities

...

The term biofuel refers to biomass such as corn grain or soybeans that is converted to liquid fuel used for transportation. Biopower results from the combustion of wood chips, corn and some other types of waste to generate heat or the conversion to liquid or gaseous fuels to generate electricity. Bioproducts such as plastic, solvents and even fertilizers are produced when biomass is converted into chemicals that are usually made from petroleum. (NREL, 2014)

In 2010, biomass use reached 56 EJ, divided as 62% in residential and commercial buildings sector, 15% in industries, 9% transportation, 8% for power and district heating sector. Among all biomass consumptions, the use of liquid biomass in the transport sector experienced the largest growth rate, 5.4% annual growth between the years 1990 and 2000 and a majorly increased annual rate of 19.2% between the years 2000 and 2010(IRENA 2014). There are three key drivers for the increase in bioenergy. First, the ultimate need to diversify the energy markets and rely on sustainable energy sources. Second, the projected rise in energy prices. And finally, the need to mitigate climate change and reduce greenhouse gases.

As per the IRENA Global Renewable Energy Roadmap (RE Map 2030), Bioenergy has the potential to contribute to up to 60% of the global renewable energy supply by 2030. (IRENA, 2014) As a matter of fact, as per the International Energy Agency (IEA), biofuels can greatly decrease CO2 emissions resulting from the transportation sector and can play an important role in improving energy security if it is produced sustainably. (IEA, 2015) In addition, the use of bioenergy could further grow in developing countries with advanced technologies for cooking, producing heat and supplying off-grid biomass electricity.

-

Food Security

A Recent Study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) entitled “The State of Food Insecurity in the World” showed that around 795 million of the world’s population, among which 780 million are from developing countries, are still undernourished and suffer from hunger. Eradicating hunger remains a global challenge and has been set as the First Millennium Development Goal, developed by the United in 2000, which commits to cut in half the number of people suffering from hunger by 2015 (FAO, 2015).

The World Food Summit in 1996 defined food security as “when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”.

Food Security is built around 4 pillars:

- Availability: the ability to have the availability of adequate and nutritious food supply (either through import, domestic production, food stock or food aid)

- Accessibility: physical and economic ability of an individual or a household to have access to food

- Stability: having a stable supply and access of food under critical conditions such as weather variability, price increase, political conflicts and economic factors.

- Utilization: food quality and diversity including good hygienic and manufacturing practices from farm to fork and people’s ability to meet macro and micronutrient requirements.

Over the decades, food consumption per capita per day has been witnessing an increase all around the world. Food consumption is measured in kilocalories (kcal) and the Food and Agriculture Administration has used the economic model “FAOSTAT” to show this increase. The global food consumption has increased from 2,435 kcal/capita/day to 2,940 kcal/capita/day from the 1970’s to 2015 and will continue to increase to reach 3,050 kcal/capita/day by 2030. However, this consumption pattern is not equally divided among developed and developing countries, as the latter are expected to have an energy consumption of 2,980 kcal/capita/day by 2030 (WHO, 2015).

-

Impact of Bioenergy on Food Security:

The efforts to diversify energy supplies, mitigate climate change and reduce dependence on fossil fuels are driving the growth of bioenergy. The nature and magnitude of the impact of bioenergy development on food security depends on the following factors, (1) the forms of bioenergy, the type of feedstock and the processing technologies, (2) the specific environmental and socio-economic baseline of the studied region, (3) the policy environment, (4) the prevailing agriculture management practices adopted for biomass production, (4) scale of production, and (5) types of business model followed along the bioenergy supply chain. It is important to mention that there are other factors that have the potential to affect the prices of crops, which include: agricultural crop being studied, the availability and affordability of land resources and the production inputs such as labor, fertilizers, water, energy and others (FAO, 2012). As such, based on these factors, bioenergy production can either promote or compete with food security.

The growth of bioenergy markets may have positive or negative effects on the four pillars of food security: availability; access; utilization, and stability. According to FAO, the potential demand of the energy market could be significant enough to challenge and affect the world spare agriculture production capacity (FAO, 2012). Bioenergy poses a threat to food security mainly through higher prices and competition over same resources such as food crops, land resources or water resources that could otherwise go to food production.

The availability of adequate food supplies can be threatened by bioenergy knowing that the land, water and other productive resources will be diverted for bioenergy production. The degree of competition of resources will depend on the quantities of agricultural yield and the development rate of the next generation technologies. The development of modern bioenergy can provide a good opportunity for farmers, contributing to higher farm incomes. In rural areas, the benefits of bioenergy production can support productivity growth in agriculture or other sectors with positive implications for food availability and access. For instance, bioenergy may create new employment and income-generating opportunities. In 2001, Brazil’s biofuel sector provided 1million new job opportunities, mostly being unskilled people in rural regions (FAO, N.D). At the same time, if the bioenergy production sector is not properly managed, it may lead to negative impacts on the productive capacity of land or on water availability