Bioenergy and Food Security

Opportunities and risks arising from the use of bioenergy for food security in Latin America

This document, which was prepared by the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) and the FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, seeks to discuss some important aspects of the debate on the ...

Jan 2007
Biomass – A sleeping giant?

Biomass is currently attracting a great deal of interest – although the debate also has its controversial aspects. Biomass is considered to be a very promising option for several reasons: to secure raw material supplies ...

Jan 2007
Biofuels: promises and constraints

Concerns about energy supply, national security, climate change, and economic development crowd the public policy agendas of most countries around the world and dominate international dialogues. Political instability in many oil exporting countries threatens the ...

Dec 2006
Food security for the Muslim world

This document illustrates the oils and fats scenario in the Muslim world total production in 2006 was 44.09 million tonnes, of which the bulk was in Malaysia (18.14 million tonnes) and Indonesia (18.37 million tonnes). ...

Dec 2006
Biofuels and the global food balance

Rising world fuel prices, the growing demand for energy, and concerns about global warming are the key factors driving the increasing interest in renewable energy sources, and in biofuels in particular. But some policymakers and ...

Dec 2006
Bioenergy and the poor

Biomass is a primary source of energy for close to 2.4 billion people in developing countries. Easily available to many of the world’s poor, biomass provides vital and affordable energy for cooking and space heating. ...

Dec 2006
Bioenergy and agriculture: promises and challenges

This document contains an overview of main promises and challenges of bioenergy that in recent years has drawn attention as a sustainable energy source that may help cope with rising energy prices, address environmental concerns ...

Dec 2006
Biomass for food or fuel: Is there a dilemma?

After centuries of daily struggle for food, it takes our breath away that today a farmer is able to single-handedly cultivate hundreds of hectares to produce sufficient food to feed thousands of families at the ...

Sep 2006
Biofuels production, trade and sustainable development: emerging issues

This paper seeks to provide a preliminary identification of the main sustainable development issues involved in the debate around production and trade in biofuels.The paper is organised as follows.Chapter 2 provides a brief description of ...

Sep 2006
Criteria for sustainable biomass production – Final Report

The project group “Sustainable Production of Biomass” has been commissioned by the Interdepartmental Programme Management Energy Transition to formulate sustainability criteria for the production and processing of biomass for energy, fuels and chemistry. In this ...

Jul 2006
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