Why Agrofuels?

Agrofuels are liquid fuels made from processing agricultural plant material. It is a shortened term for ‘agricultural biofuels’. This term is used to be clear that our opposition is to growing crops such as corn, sugarcane, soybeans, and oil palms on an industrial scale for fuel. This is because it displaces crops needed to feed people, and destroys important habitats such as tropical rainforests which are needed to safeguard their biodiversity. We don’t want to attack those re-cycling waste oils like chip-fat into bio-diesel, or the rural poor of the Third World who rely on biofuels such as wood to cook with.

Agrofuels have received a hostile welcome from scientists, the United Nations World Food Program, conservationists, the World Bank and social movements in the many countries. The reason, as Bolivian President Evo Morales states is straight-forward, "This is very serious," he said. "How important is life and how important are cars? So I say life first and cars second." (1)

Agrofuels are attractive to the automobile industry and First World governments because they were sold the idea that in the face of climate change and the need to radically reduce emission of carbon dioxide ‘business-as-usual’ was possible if agrofuels were adopted. The idea is simple, but deeply flawed. In principle, agrofuels are a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional transport fuels. Burning the agrofuels, like fossil fuels, releases carbon dioxide, but growing the plants absorbs a comparable amount of the gas from the atmosphere. In the abstract they are carbon-neutral fuels. But back in the real world, there are four major omissions.

First, energy is used in farming and processing the crops, and this can make biofuels as polluting as petroleum-based fuels, depending on what is grown and how it is treated. Second, every acre of land put into agrofuels production means, if food production is to remain the same, that an acre of land must be cleared of wild vegetation. This process of land-clearing releases 17-420 times the annual amount of carbon saved by producing the agrofuels, meaning that over a time-span of decades to centuries agrofuels are accelerating climate change, not mitigating it (2). Thirdly, there are massive environmental costs, with land-clearing adding to biodiversity loss, particularly the rise in palm oil use in rainforest areas of South East Asia, and soya bean production in Amazonia. Fourthly, there are massive social costs, with Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, stating that prices of all staple foods had risen 80% in three years, in part due to the switch of crops from feed people to feeding cars, and that 33 countries faced major unrest because of the price rises (3). However, such is the lure of business-as-usual, from April 15 this year the UK government decided that 2.5% of all fuel at the petrol pump must be from biofuels, and rising over time (4). Amazingly, this 2.5% has no requirement to actually reduce carbon dioxide emissions (5).

The social and environmental crises are huge. There have been protests and food riots this year in Guinea, Egypt, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger, Uzbekistan, Senegal, Haiti, Bolivia, Indonesia, Bangadesh, Cameroon and the Philippines (6), and deforestation rates, while difficult to quantify accurately and quickly appear to be at record levels, threatening hundreds of thousands of species including the Orang Utan (7).

The madness of starving people and burning biodiversity to keep cars on the road is why we will be targeting the agrofuels industry on Wednesday August 6th.

(1) The Guardian 22 April 2008. Biofuels starving our people, leaders tell UN,
Allegra Stratton

(2) Fargione, J. et al. 2008. Land clearing and the biofuel carbon debt. Science, Issue 319, Pages 1235-1238.

Note that some sustainable biofuel production is possible, using abandoned agricultural land that had not reverted back to forest. The could supply 5% of fossil fuel use at 2006 rates, see, Field et al. 2008. Biomass energy: the scale of the potential resource. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Issues 23, Page 65-72.

(3) The Guardian 5 April 2008. Crop switch worsens global food price crisis. John Vidal.

(4) The Guardian 15 April 2008 Ruth Kelly (Transport Minister)

(5) Royal Society Report, Sustainable biofuels: prospects and challenges, January 2008.

(6) From News Agency Wires (Reuters, Associated Press) over Jan-April 2008.

(7) Reuters 16 January 2008. Amazon deforestation seen surging.
Stuart Grudgings.

Asia Times 29 November 2007. More bad rap on Asian biofuels.
Marwaan Macan-Markar Fargione J (Fargione, Joseph), Hill J (Hill, Jason), Tilman D (Tilman, David), Polasky S (Polasky, Stephen), Hawthorne P (Hawthorne, Peter)
Source: SCIENCE Volume: 319 Issue: 5867 Pages: 1235-1238 Published: FEB 29 2008

to using land that was for crops to feed people, or land for biodiversity, to grow fuel.

is to separate the use of land from growing crops for people, and land for biodiversity -