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Making Sure That Biofuel Development Benefits Small Farmers and Communities

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Making Sure That Biofuel Development Benefits Small Farmers and Communities 25 0DNLQJVXUHWKDWELRIXHOGHYHORSPHQWEHQH¿WVVPDOO farmers and communities O. Dubois Some suggestions on how to he quest for sustainable bio- Biofuel development is also strongly achieve biofuel development fuel systems has increased tre- influenced by current global trends such that favours sustainable rural Tmendously over the past few as transition to market economies, glo- livelihoods. years. Concerns about potential nega- balization, high and volatile fossil fuel tive effects, such as deforestation and prices and rising concerns about climate competition between food and biofuel change. Yet biofuel development should production, have led to the demand be geared to people’s livelihoods as well for sustainability instruments such as as to global and national energy needs. standards, criteria and indicators to be Livelihoods are sustainable (Ashby and applied through mandatory regulations Carney, 1999) when they: and/or voluntary schemes such as cer- xare resilient in the face of external tification. shocks and stresses; To ensure that biofuels contribute to xare not dependent on external support the Millennium Development Goals, (or if they are, this support should and in particular to the first goal on itself be economically and institu- food security and poverty reduction, tionally sustainable); it is important to ensure that biofuel xmaintain the long-term productivity development at least does not harm, of natural resources; and preferably favours, the livelihood xdo not undermine the livelihoods strategies of small-scale producers and of, or compromise the livelihood communities in rural areas. This article options open to, others. addresses what it takes to achieve biofuel The article briefly discusses gover- development that favours sustainable nance mechanisms that can ensure that rural livelihoods. small farmers and communities in rural Biofuel systems are complex because: areas do not lose out from the implemen- xthey are inherently composed of three tation of biofuel schemes. quite diverse components – feed- stock (raw material) supply, conver- SUSTAINABILITY IN UNCERTAIN sion technology and energy use; TIMES AND CHANGING Olivier Dubois is Senior Rural Institutions xthese components are influenced ENVIRONMENTS 2I¿FHUDQG&RRUGLQDWRURIWKH%LRHQHUJ\*URXS simultaneously by environmental, Biofuel systems can be developed in Environment, Climate Change and Bioenergy economic and social factors; diverse land-use situations (Figure 1). Division, Natural Resources Management and Environment Department, FAO, Rome. xthey can serve various purposes, Conventional management methods are from national energy supply to com- efficient in differentiating these land Adapted from the author’s paper “How munity-level energy autonomy; uses according to physical criteria. good enough biofuel governance can help rural livelihoods: making sure that biofuel xthey function at different scales, However, actual land uses change not development works for small farmers and from large-scale to decentralized only according to physical factors but communities”, an unpublished background paper village-based schemes. also because needs change as demands for FAO’s State of Food and Agriculture 2008. Unasylva 230, Vol. 59, 2008 26 characterized according to their manda- tory or voluntary character as well as the BiodiversityForests External input intensity scale of their application, as illustrated in Figure 2 (Van Dam et al., 2006). The performance of regulatory and voluntary instruments in terms of small Old growth Managed Indigenous Exotic natural plantations plantations farmers’ and communities’ livelihoods cannot yet be evaluated for biofuel deve- lopment on a global scale because it is Agroforestry so recent, but lessons can be drawn from other types of land uses. Experience with forest resource management, for Traditional shifting instance, has suggested that: cultivation and Mixed systems Alley cropping x“Control and command/fines and home gardens fences” strategies seldom work on the ground because they are not cost effective and are difficult to Agriculture enforce. x Collaborative strategies for sustain- able resource management are more Highly mixed traditional systems Monoculture industrial farming bound to achieve sustainable out- comes but they involve significant transaction costs (i.e. costs of inter- Internally generated systems Externally generated systems action) in the short and medium term. Ways to reduce interaction costs Source:: Bass, Hawthorne and Hughes, 1998 include selecting key stakehold- ers according to their importance 1 and influence, and involving rep- Land-use spectrum as basis for biofuel development resentatives of stakeholder groups from society, market opportunities and of the dynamics of environmental and such as smallholder or community stakeholders’ entitlements evolve. It socio-economic changes. And they organizations in negotiating agree- is therefore important to consider the should take into account the politi- ments (Dubois and Lowore, 2000; dynamics of land uses when assess- cal dimension of land use and natural Abramovay and Magalhães, 2007). ing their environmental, economic and resource management, including power x The use of voluntary schemes such social impacts. Table 1 illustrates this relationships, and develop approaches as certification have primarily been through the different possible trajecto- to deal with this dimension. driven from outside and often by do- ries of forest cover, income and popu- Uncertainty concerns not only eco- nors. Subsidies provided by donors lation density. In particular, it shows logical but also socio-economic circum- to help community enterprises obtain that different land cover trajectories are stances, leading to different forms of certification can undermine sustain- caused by and contribute to livelihood vulnerability in rural areas. The aim able commercial decision-making needs in different ways, and change of sustainable development should by the enterprises. Although some over time. therefore be to manage, in time and communities value the non-mar- It is increasingly accepted that modern space, change resulting from interac- ket benefits of certification, such policies and planning strategies regard- tions among ecological, economic and as recognition and credibility, the ing land use and natural resource man- socio-political factors. main driving force is the promise agement should account for “unpredicta- of greater market security. Without bles” and “unknowns”, hence uncertainty HOW TO ADDRESS SUSTAINABLE this security, communities may not in land use and natural resource manage- BIOFUEL DEVELOPMENT IN continue with certification beyond ment (Dubois, 2003). They should be PRACTICE an initial “honeymoon” period when adaptive, following a learning process Approaches and instruments to achieve support from donors and certifiers and involving continuous monitoring sustainable biofuel development can be is at its highest (Bass et al., 2001). Unasylva 230, Vol. 59, 2008 27 TABLE 1. )LYHSRVVLEOHWUDMHFWRULHVRIIRUHVWFRYHULQFRPHDQGSRSXODWLRQ Trajectory Agricultural rent curve Managed forest rent Forest cover Poverty and population Location of identifying curve trend trend characteristic +PVGPUKſECVKQPYKVJ Shifts up because of Is everywhere Deforestation Landowners prosper, Peri-urban, good soils, deforestation increasing urban or dominated by continues labour demand probably high-input agriculture (e.g. soybean areas in international demand agricultural rent and stabilizes increases, wages and/or and higher population Brazilian savannah) for improved tenure at low forest workforces increase, with density cover possible urban labour growth +PVGPUKſECVKQPYKVJ Shifts up because Shifts up because of Decreases, Landowners prosper, Peri-urban, medium to reforestation of increasing urban increased demand, then rebounds labour demand increases good soils, medium- to (e.g. woodlots) demand, increasing exhaustion of mined and wages and high-input agriculture returns and improved sources and demand workforces increase and medium to high tenure for environmental population density services Abandonment with Shifts up because Shifts up because Decreases, Poverty decreases Likely on marginal regrowth of increasing urban of improved tenure then rebounds because of out-migration lands: hillsides and/or (e.g. forests in Europe demand, then down and increased semi-remote forested and the United States) because of rising demand for wood land, or where wages and environmental population density is services low Abandonment and Shifts up and down Never surfaces, Decreases Out-migration without Marginal lands, not irreversible degradation because of land either because of towards zero poverty alleviation near cities; nutrient- (e.g. Imperata degradation high costs or tenure poor soils, slopes or grasslands in or irreversibility of JKIJN[ſTGRTQPGNCPFU Southeast Asia) degradation grasslands in forest biomes Deforestation and Shifts up because Shifts down because Decreases Larger but poorer Probably not near pauperization of failing wages of soil degradation, towards zero population cities; anomalously and increasing food and disputes over high population density demand land tenure increase given remoteness and agroclimate Source: Chomitz, 2006 2 Possible approaches to the implementation of policies for sustainable biofuel National, small-scale end use International end-use development Voluntary certification Voluntary label with Voluntary system, private international initiative agreement
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