The role of agricultural biotechnologies for production of bioenergy in developing countries - Background document

Nov 2008

The role of agricultural biotechnologies for production of bioenergy in developing countries - Background documentThe FAO Biotechnology Forum is hosting an e-mail conference entitled "The role of agricultural biotechnologies for production of bioenergy in developing countries". Organised in collaboration with the FAO Working Group on Bioenergy, the conference takes place from 10 November to 7 December 2008 and focuses mainly on liquid biofuels.
This is the Background Document for the conference and it covers biotechnology applications for first- and second-generation biofuels and, to a lesser degree, for biogas production and for biodiesel production from micro-algae. It aims to provide information about the conference theme that participants will find useful for the debate.
First, an overview is provided of the current status regarding bioenergy, focusing on first- and second-generation liquid biofuels (Section 2), including the major reasons for the big interest as well as current concerns about them. Some of the potential ways in which biotechnology could contribute to this area are then considered, covering production of biomass as well as conversion of the biomass to first or second generation liquid biofuels, in addition to production of biodiesel from micro-algae and production of biogas (Section 3). A small number of issues of specific relevance to the debate are briefly described in Section 4 while some of the kinds of specific questions that should be addressed in the conference are listed in Section 5. Finally, references to articles mentioned in the document, abbreviations and acknowledgements are provided in Section 6.

By: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

 
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