A study funded by the European Union and conducted over the past three years in Brazil, Mexico, Ghana, Zambia, Indonesia and Malaysia tries to identify the pros and cons of switching to vegetable fuel in terms of the impact on the natural environment and the residents in the areas developed for the cultivation of vegetable fuel.
A study that the researchers gave the name "Bioenergy, sustainability and trade-offs: Can we avoid deforestation while promoting biofuels?" "Biological fuel: sustainability and weighing trade-offs, is it possible to avoid burning forests while promoting the use of vegetable fuel?"
The study was funded by the European Union and conducted over the past three years in Brazil, Mexico, Ghana, Zambia, Indonesia and Malaysia and tries to identify the pros and cons of switching to vegetable fuel in terms of the impact on the natural environment and the residents in the areas developed to grow vegetable fuel.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the idea of using vegetable fuel flourished. Removing the dependence on mineral fuel and using a fuel that does not cause excess emissions of greenhouse gases were the main impetus for the implementation of the idea. Added to them is the idea that vegetable fuel crops will give existential security to the inhabitants of rural areas in backward countries. But a study by the "International Center for Forestry" CIFOR - Center for International Forestry Research Shows that the image is not so "green".
According to the research, the social and economic effects of growing vegetable fuel by small growers and growers on an industrial scale - are not always positive. In many areas of the world, only a small part of the destruction of forests is directly attributed to the cultivation of vegetable fuel, since most of the direct damage is attributed to crops such as soy, corn, sugar cane and especially oil palm. Crops that are considered as food, that is, crops that reach the markets as food, but most of them are also used to produce vegetable fuel. It is therefore difficult to measure the effect of the vegetable fuel market on deforestation.
Despite this, the negative impact of vegetable fuel crops on the natural environment should not be ignored. The effect is different in different regions, which depends on the way the vegetable fuel market develops and the way the land is used (on which the vegetable fuel is grown). It was found that investments in the cultivation of vegetable fuel on an industrial scale: in Indonesia for the cultivation of oil palm, or in Brazil for the cultivation of soybeans - cause an increase in the destruction of forests.
Social Influence
The study showed that workers in large plantations in Brazil, Malaysia and Indonesia report an improvement in their living conditions, due to regular work, access to social services and higher income.
However, the overall number of workers in the plantations remains low - even lower than the number of people who lived in the past on the areas where the plantations were planted. Farmers in rural areas who, until the transition to vegetable fuel crops, lived from households and selling the surplus, did not have a fixed income, so when they become employees, they tend to view the fixed salary positively. However, there are cases in which, despite the fixed salary, there is a decrease in the standard of living, mainly because of the change between permanent work and occupations that change according to the seasons and the conditions of the area. Areas of land are used for many different crops, therefore villagers who have become tenants in large farms who have lost their land feel harmed. The land gave its owner security that was lost. A person who has become a tenant cannot go back and grow rice, vegetables, fruits or cows, since the land is owned by the entrepreneur, and thus a farmer who was independent becomes a vassal.
Small jatropha growers in Zambia or Mexico struggle due to insecurity in crop quantities, business model and marketing options. Not everyone who wants to develop the industry manages to meet the initial expenses. The entry of entrepreneurs on an industrial scale into the jatropha market causes land prices to rise, and thus small entrepreneurs are eliminated from the system in favor of "tycoons".
the environmental cost
The lack of security in the supply of mineral fuel caused various governments, such as the European Union and the United States, to commit to increasing the use of renewable energy sources, including vegetable fuel.
These commitments resulted in a considerable increase in the areas where vegetable fuel is grown. Vegetable fuel was accepted as the "silver bullet", as much as it would allow the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Entrepreneurs received benefits and incentives to develop the vegetable fuel crops, but in the light of attempts in the last five years, unexpected challenges arose. The first one is: clear forests to prepare areas for growing soy, sugar cane, corn and oil palm.
In mid-October, the European Union published a series of rules that are supposed to monitor the sources of vegetable fuel in order to mitigate the damage to the natural environment, as well as to prevent indirect pollutant emissions (due to deforestation). According to the Union Commissioner for Climate and Environment: "In many cases it became clear that the "environmental wisdom" in growing vegetable fuel causes worse damage than the use of mineral fuel" and added that: "The main damage comes from changes in the use of forested areas".
Equally important is the fact that vegetable fuel crops gradually took the place of food crops, and again, since it is difficult to separate agricultural crops that will be marketed as food from vegetable fuel crops - only at the end of the study did the magnitude of the vegetable fuel crops' "contribution" to the damage become clear.
The researchers promise that they will continue their work to obtain additional assessments regarding the effects of the demand for vegetable fuel on the residents and the environment, and in the meantime, one of the conclusions of the study is that: "The supervision of large producers and entrepreneurs must be tightened while at the same time supporting small growers. There is a need for legal protection for rural residents, which will allow them to continue cultivating their lands in the traditional way and allow them access to markets."
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The stevia plant gives 300-400 times the sweetness of sugar cane. In my estimation, about 10% of the sugar cane area, if they were to switch to growing stevia in which they could provide the sweetness required from the sugar cane, as well as sugar beet and corn, this would release a huge amount of plants for the production of biofuel and not at the expense of the forested area
In addition, this will prevent the health damage caused by the sugar consumed today, because Stevia is almost calorie-free.
How can the idea be transferred to realization by the big manufacturers?
An excellent article and indeed also other pitfalls: the transition to growing fuel-producing vegetation at the expense of edible vegetation for humans has dramatically increased the prices of commodities such as sugar, soy, etc. and thus entire populations and nations are severely affected because their wages have not increased but the cost of their basic food has increased. Moreover, heartless hedge funds that understood the trend speculatively accumulated huge amounts of basic food products and caused an artificial increase in their prices. I completely agree with Ami Bachar.
In biotechnological engineering, plants with a cancerous growth rate must be produced that will be resistant to the desert environment and will be able to receive brackish water that is pumped in place. This way you will get good biomass at a low cost. The material must be burned in a local plant as well and the electricity transferred to the city. In the whole place you can cover the buildings with solar panels and witness windmills that will pump the water for the palm trees.
The land in the Sahara desert - for free