Proceedings of conference held at Pentlands Science Park on 2nd December 2009.

Stephen Ruvuga, Executive Director of MVIWATA, a network of small-scale farmers groups in Tanzania spoke on the title “Is biofuel production good for Africa?”. He started by highlighting the factors that have triggered interest in biofuels, including our dependency on fossil fuels, the high price of fossil fuels, and the potential role of biofuels in helping reduce carbon emissions.

He explained that if the EU were to meet their target of having a 10% fuel blend by 2020 then 43% of the EU’s arable land would need to be turned over to biofuel crops. As this would not be possible, energy companies are forced to look elsewhere for land. As Africa has a favourable climate, cheap labour, and large areas of “uncultivated land”, it is an popular choice, with 20M Ha of land currently being sought for biofuel production. He went on to explain that in fact it is rarely uncultivated land that these companies buy however; the land is often being used for food production and tends to the most fertile and irrigated land.

Mr Ruvuga outlined a number of concerns that pose a threat to food security in the region. Firstly there is the issue of displacement of people from their land. He sited an example of a British biofuels company which acquired land that covered eleven villages in the Coast region of Tanzania. 11,000 people were forced from their farms where they had been farming for generations, and only 1000 of those people could be employed directly or indirectly on the biofuel plantation. He explained that after energy companies had made a deal with the government, the villagers whose land would be taken would need to relocate “for the national interest”.

He also spoke of the fact that using arable land for biofuel production rather than food production reduced the food supply, pushing up the cost of food and leading more families into poverty. Growing water hungry crops such as sugarcane also reduce the amount of water available for other uses, especially when rivers are diverted for large-scale irrigation.

In addition to the human problems, he also spoke of environmental costs. Sometimes woodland is cleared to make way for a biofuel crops such as jatropha or sugarcane mono-crop. Clearing of forests reduces the carbon sink and leads to a loss of biodiversity.

He concluded by suggesting that action needed to be taken not only by African governments, but also by the consumers of the biofuels; us. He raised the question of why we care about the welfare of the cows that produce the beef we eat, and demand total traceability of that system, yet do not stop to think where the fuel that we put into our cars comes from, and the fact that people in Africa may be suffering as a result of our use of biofuels.

Next to speak was Duncan McLaren, Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland. His title was “Biofuels: Green Solution or Climate Con”. You didn’t have to listen to more than a few lines of his presentation to know that it was the latter that he believed to be the case!

He discussed various biofuel crops, comparing their carbon saving. He explained that calculations are misleading since they do not take into account the clearing of the land, fertiliser etc. Based on some more thorough calculations he presented, Sugarcane is the only biofuel crop that appeared to have some kind of net energy saving whilst crops such as wheat actually had a net carbon loss.

He reiterated Stephen’s concern of the impact of biofuel production on the environment when forest is cleared to make way for biofuel crops. He cited a study from Conservation Biology in which it is reported that it will take more than 75 years for the carbon emissions saved through the use of biofuels to compensate for the carbon lost when oil-palm plantations are established on forestlands. If the original habitat was peat-land, carbon balance would take more than 600 years.

He also cautioned about the high water requirement of biofuel crops as well as their effects on food security for the poor. He claimed that in 2007 the global food price crisis dragged over 100 Million people into poverty, and according to the World Bank, the conversion of land from food production to biofuel production was one of the major causes.

He explained that the problem was not only biofuel crops themselves, but also the Corporate control over biofuel supply chains that gives them the upper hand and puts the communities at a disadvantage. He suggested that multi-national corporations needed to be monitored and kept in line by western governments, and not allowed to use exploitative practices.

He went on to conclude when considering our energy needs, we should not be stuck in the mindset of requiring an endless supply of liquid fuel for our vehicles, but should also consider other options such as developing electric vehicles. He also called on the EU to drop their 2003 directive, which aims for a 10% fuel mix by 2020.

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