Cross-cutting issues

biofuels and food security

Jeremy Woods (Imperial College London / Climate-KIC)

&

Glaucia da Souza (University of São Paulo & SCOPE Bioenergy)

IFPRI, Washington DC, 20th November 2014

Energy Security

Biofuels and Food Security – ‘a wicked problem?’

Environmental (e.g. Climate Change,

soils, water, air)

Development & Governance

Availability

Access

Susta

inab

ility

Fo

od

sec

uri

ty Food Security

Usability (safety & nutrition)

Stability

Cross-cutting

SYSTEM DYNAMICS OF THE ‘THREE RESPONSES’ OF FOSSIL FUEL SYSTEMS TO RENEWABLE ENERGY (FOSTER, 2014)

Sustainable intensification of the food system(Garnett & Godfray, 2012)

Climate impacts on crop yields(World Bank 2010)

Climate Change and future crop yields(IPCC WG2 SPM, 2014)

Area 25 – food & energy market, Lilongwe, July 2014

International groundnut market

Complexity as an opportunity• Different tools for different scales (local, international, global)• Different tools / approaches for different land types / areas• Different tools / instruments / approaches for different places,

cultures, people

• Need to think across temporal and spatial scales and actively seek resilient integrational outcomes

Complexity is both the biggest obstacle but also the biggest opportunity for bioenergy. Do we have the human ingenuity to make it work?

Thank you from the Ntchisi

Key cross-cutting questions

Important questions that need to be addressed by research and which are indicative of the complex interactions between bioenergy and food production include: • What is the potential for diversifying value streams, market substitutions,

implicit investment risks and the interactions with food production?• How can the integration of biofuels within food supply systems affect food

security?• The global food system needs to respond to climate change through both

mitigation and adaptation; what are the implications of significant levels of bioenergy deployment on these response options?

• What role do productivity improvements play in creating stronger synergies?

• Can bioenergy be deployed in ways that enhances rather than degrades the resilience of the global food (production and consumption) system? If so, how can this be achieved and how likely is it that good outcomes will arise?

Key cross-cutting questions

In this topical theme, we raise a number of important questions that need to be addressed by research and which are indicative of the complex interactions between bioenergy and food production including: • How can the integration of biofuels within food supply systems affect

food security?• What role do productivity improvements play in creating stronger

synergies?• Can bioenergy be deployed in ways that enhances rather than degrades

the resilience of the global food (production and consumption) system? If so, how can this be achieved and how likely is it that good outcomes will arise?

Key cross-cutting questions: Economic

• Will biofuels be competitive with conventional energy sources?• Set a global price ceiling e.g. for oil / other

renewables? (see Foster, 2014)• Will biofuels compete with food production?

• What is the potential for diversifying value streams, market substitutions, implicit investment risks and the interactions with food production?

• Impacts on input prices?• Floor price for commodity crops?• Impacts on crop yields? • Land demand & rents?

• Impacts on food price volatility

Key cross-cutting questions: Environmental

• Climate change- mitigation and adaptation• Impacts on water

• Availability• Quality• hydrology,

• Impacts on land and soils• land use change• erosion, • soil organic matter, • biodiversity, • carbon stocks, • nutrient and water holding capacities• toxicity (e.g. ash disposal)

• Air quality• Invasive species• GMOs• … many more ….

DeliveringPublic goods• Can perennial crops be

deployed to deliver public goods

• Satellite view of sediment plumes during winter / spring flooding in UK (April/May 2014)

• September 2014 – driest September on record

Key cross-cutting questions: Social & Governance

• Impacts on jobs / job quality• Rural development vs urbanisation

• Impacts on literacy and schooling• Health & welfare• Governance and regulation

• Assurance and certification• Monitoring and measurement• Climate smart agriculture• Issues of scale (production, conversion, national to

global market share)• Sustainable development goals (equity, aspiration)

• Issues of ‘scale’

Multiple ‘models’ are possible:Issues of scale: Bioenergy Development Options

Large Scale1. Sugarcane to EtOH2. Palm / Soy Biodiesel

Mill-owned estate

Very competitive globally

Little Value Added to

Local Communities

Export potential

Small-holder led

Higher cost base

Less globally competitive

High Value Added to

Local Communitie

s

Export potentialCommunity-level winners

and losers

Small Scale1. Sweet Sorghum – micro-distillery

2. Woodlot gasification elec. (Hosahali)

Multi-product croppinge.g. sweet sorghum

Economics Uncertain

Complex-Value Added

to Local Communities

High risk

Local MarketsSocial Issues Crop not well characterised

Single Bioenergy

Producte.g. multi-species

woodlot

Value Added to Local

CommunitiesHigh Risk

Complex food-fuel-cash-crop interactions

Integration & transition

18

Sarah Best30th April 2014

Sarah Best ‘Growing Power: Exploring Energy Needs in Smallholder Agriculture’ IIED, 2014What’s the issue? (a) Food for all implies more modern energy and equipment in food system

Clarke, 2008. http://www.raeng.org.uk/events/pdf/252/lawrence_clarke.pdf

SUSTAINABLE INTENSIFICATION

Integration & complexity (friend or foe?)

The Global Calculator Land Use Change (A. Strapasson, 2014 PhD thesis)

Integrated systems perspectives

Dynamics of bioenergy, residues and wastes in the global calculator model

Land, Food and Bioenergy Interactions – driver tree

The Global Calculator

Food demand is always provided for in the global calculator model

Level 1: Mismanaged land use. It assumes that 10% more agricultural land would be necessary to attain the selected food/livestock/bioenergy productions.

Level 2: Current world pattern of agricultural system stabilised until 2050 (no change from 2011).

Level 3: 10% less agricultural land is necessary to attain the selected food/livestock/bioenergy productions.

Level 4: 30% less agricultural land would be necessary to attend the selected food/livestock/bioenergy productions.

Land-use efficiency (land integration)

Integration through improved use of wastes and residues

Level 1: Assumes no increase in the production and collection of on-farm residues; and no increase in

the production of post-farm wastes and residues, but with a low increase in their collection for energy

and feed.

Level 2: Moderate increase in the collection of on-farm residues. It also assumes a reduction in the

production of post-farm residues and wastes and moderate increase in collection for energy and feed.

Level 3: High collection of on-farm residues for energy and feed, as well as reduction in the production

of post-farm wastes and residues, and increase in their collection.

Level 4: Extreme collection of on-farm residues for energy and feed, as well as substantial reduction in

the production of post-farm wastes and residues, and increase in their collection.

Wastes and Residues

Simplified relation of food prices to bioenergy (SCOPE Chapter 4, Bioenergy & Food Security)

Summary• Understanding, monitoring and managing complex,

highly interlinked systems- perfect outcomes are extremely unlikely– Beware over-regulation– Life Cycle Assessment (attributional and consequential) is

still a young ‘science’

• Assigning causality for impacts and allocating to co-products

• Beware of burden shifting / gaming• Rewarding ‘co-benefits’ of integration, including

enhanced resilience

Global Calculator

Interactions between sectors (the whole picture) – energy, food, land …

‘Political tensions and high prices from Gazprom are driving shifts that suggest Moscow does not hold all the cards

Pressure points: a worker on the Nord Stream project supplying Russian gas to GermanyThe night shift at Agropolychim, Bulgaria’s biggest fertiliser plant, received a fax at 4.30am on January 6 2009 warning that their gas supply was going to be cut off immediately. The engineers demanded four more hours: an instant shutdown would leave a cocktail of explosive chemicals to congeal in the plant’s pipes, destroying vital equipment. “It was all hands on deck,” recalls Philippe Rombaut.…Mr Rombaut’s plans at Agropolychim show that Moscow does not hold all the cards. Next year, he will switch from gas to biomass, running on straw and woodchips. That is highly significant for Gazprom because Agropolychim and Neochim, Bulgaria’s leading fertiliser plants, jointly consume about 25 per cent of the country’s gas.’

Can Europe wean itself off Russian gas?By Christian Oliver and Henry Foy

The Financial Times (Print Edition, 14th October 2014)