Abstract
Large-scale deployment of biofuels has a profound effect on allocation of land resources. The expansion of biofuels industry requires a greater amount of crop lands for producing biofuel feedstocks. This additional crop lands could be supplied through (1) reallocation of existing crop lands from other crops (e.g., rice, fruits and vegetables, tobacco, cotton) towards production of biofuel feedstocks (e.g., corn, sugarcane, jatropha, rapeseed), (2) conversion of forest and pasture lands to crop lands. The land-use change thus occurs directly and indirectly. For example, when forest land is converted to produce sugarcane, such conversion is termed as direct land-use change. When biofuels displace existing crop lands in one part of the world, and production of food crops increases in other parts of the world (e.g., by converting forest lands to crop lands), this conversion is termed as indirect land-use change.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
A module that can represent both conventional and unconventional oil and gas reserves and production would be ideal; however, the model used here does not have that capacity. Hence, we used energy price forecasts from other sources instead of generating them endogenously in the baseline.
References
Al-Riffai, P., Dimaranan, B., & Laborde, D. (2010). Global trade and environmental impact study of the EU biofuels mandate. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. Retrieved from http://environmentportal.in/files/biofuelsreportec.pdf
Banse, M., Meijl, H. van, Tabeau, A., & Woltjer, G. (2008). Impact of EU biofuel policies on world agricultural and food markets. Presented at the 107th Seminar of the European Association of Agricultural Economists, Sevilla, Spain.
Cassman, K. G., Grassini, P., & Wart, J. V. (2010). Crop yield potential, yield trends, and global food security in a changing climate. In D. Hillel & C. Rosenzweig (Eds.), Handbook of climate change and agroecosystems (pp. 37–51). London, England: Imperial College Press.
Dicks, M. R., Campiche, J., Ugarte, D. D. L. T., Hellwinckel, C., Bryant, H. L., & Richardson, J. W. (2009). Land use implications of expanding biofuel demand. Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, 41(02). Retrieved from http://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/joaaec/53091.html
Fabiosa, J. F., Beghin, J. C., Dong, F., Elobeid, J., Tokgoz, S., & Yu, T.-H. (2010). Land allocation effects of the global ethanol surge: Predictions from the international FAPRI model. Land Economics, 86(4), 687–706.
Fargione, J., Hill, J., Tilman, D., Polasky, S., & Hawthorne, P. (2008). Land clearing and the biofuel carbon debt. Science, 319(5867), 1235–1238.
Gurgel, A., Reilly, J. M., & Paltsev, S. (2007). Potential land use implications of a global biofuels industry. Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, 5(2). Retrieved from http://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bjafio/v5y2007i2n9.html
Hertel, T. W., Golub, A. G., Jones, A., O’Hare, M., Plevin, R., & Kammen, D. (2010). Global land use and greenhouse gas emissions impacts of US maize ethanol: Estimating market-mediated responses. BioScience, 3, 223–31.
Hertel, T. W., Steinbuks, J., & Baldos, U. L. (2013). Competition for land in the global bioeconomy. Agricultural Economics, 44(s1), 129–138. doi:10.1111/agec.12057.
Khanna, M., & Crago, C. L. (2012). Measuring indirect land use change with biofuels: Implications for policy. Annual Review Resource Economics, 4(1), 161–184.
Lotze-Campen, H., Popp, A., Beringer, T., Müller, C., Bondeau, A., Rost, S., et al. (2010). Scenarios of global bioenergy production: The trade-offs between agricultural expansion, intensification and trade. Ecological Modelling, 221(18), 2188–2196. doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2009.10.002.
Melillo, J. M., Gurgel, A. C., Kicklighter, D. W., Reilly, J. M., Cronin, T. W., Felzer, B. S. et al. (2009). Unintended environmental consequences of a global biofuels program (No. 168). MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
National Research Council (NRC). (2011). Renewable fuel standard: Potential economic and environmental effects of U.S. biofuel policy. The National Academies Press. Retrieved from http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13105
Searchinger, T., Heimlich, R., Houghton, R. A., Dong, F., Elobeid, A., Fabiosa, J. et al. (2008). Use of US croplands for biofuels increases greenhouse gases through emissions from land-use change. Science, 319(5867), 1238–1240.
Steinbuks, J., & Hertel, T. (2012). Forest, Agriculture and biofuels in a land use model with environmental services. Center for Global Trade Analysis Working Paper. Retrieved from https://www.gtap.agecon.purdue.edu/resources/res_display.asp?RecordID=3988
Steinbuks, J., & Hertel, T. W. (2013). Energy prices will play an important role in determining global land use in the twenty first century. Environmental Research Letters, 8(1), 014014. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/1/014014.
Timilsina, G. R., Beghin, J. C., van der Mensbrugghe, D., & Mevel, S. (2012). The impacts of biofuels targets on land-use change and food supply: A global CGE assessment. Agricultural Economics, 43(3), 315–332.
Timilsina, G. R., Csordas, S., & Mevel, S. (2011). When does a carbon tax on fossil fuels stimulate biofuels? Ecological Economics, 70, 2400–2415.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Appendix
Appendix
Deforestation due to global expansion of biofuels—change from the baseline in 2020 (million ha.). Source: Timilsina et al. (2012)
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Steinbuks, J., Timilsina, G.R. (2014). Land-Use Change and Food Supply. In: Timilsina, G., Zilberman, D. (eds) The Impacts of Biofuels on the Economy, Environment, and Poverty. Natural Resource Management and Policy, vol 41. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0518-8_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0518-8_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-0517-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-0518-8
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)