The year 2008 will perhaps be remembered as the defining moment when the world experienced the reality of the inter-linkages and interdependencies between food and energy. A number of factors including the adoption of mandatory biofuels policies, high crude oil price volatility, increasing food import demand from major developing countries and below average harvests in some countries as well as low level of world food stocks resulted in sudden increases in world food prices causing domestic prices of staple foods in a number of countries to increase by over 50 percent in a matter of weeks.
A number of developed countries have embraced the apparent win-win opportunity to foster the development of biofuels in order to respond to the threats of climate change, to lessen their dependency on oil and to contribute to enhancing agriculture and rural development, which is also of concern to developing countries where more than 70 percent of the poor reside in rural areas. Countries such as the United States, Member States of the European Union, China, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Thailand have all adopted policy measures and set targets for the development of biofuels.
Whilst the justification of biofuels targets to enhance fuel energy security and to contribute to climate change mitigation and agricultural rural development is appealing, the reality is complex since the consequences of biofuels developments result in local, national, regional and global social, environmental and economic impacts, well beyond the national and regional setting of domestic biofuels targets.
There has been a lack of comprehensive assessments, including thorough analyses of the potential impacts of biofuels developments on international food prices, food insecurity, greenhouse gas savings as well as the risks of biodiversity loss.
The objectives of the study are threefold:
(i) to present a comprehensive review of the status of biofuels developments around the world and the policy regimes and support measures driving this evolution,
(ii) to assess the agro-ecological potential of all major biofuels crops – first and second-generation and
(iii) to comprehensively evaluate the social, environmental and economic impacts and implications of biofuels developments on transport fuel security, climate change mitigation, agricultural prices, food security, land use change and sustainable agricultural development.

By: The OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID)

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