Biomass, Biovalue and Sustainability: Some Thoughts on the Definition of the Bioeconomy

summary: Biomass, Biovalue and Sustainability: Some Thoughts on the Definition of the Bioeconomy The success of innovation policies addressing the bioeconomy - and particularly those related to agriculture and food - will depend on how the concept is translated into policies, and therefore on how the term is understood and defined. In this article, different 'clusters' of definitions are considered, alternatively biotechnologies, biomass, and biochemical and biophysical processes as key criteria for identification. It is argued that none of these definitions properly address the issue of sustainability. In fact, a 'broad' definition of bioeconomy, encompassing all biochemical and biophysical processes, would make it useless for policy purposes. The article proposes building a definition of the bioeconomy around the concept of biovalue. It identifies the goal of the bioeconomy as the capacity to mobilise science to obtain high biovalue returns from low-cost living matter, for example organic waste, and includes the value of non-market goods associated with agriculture and food. In this regard, a distinction is made between 'natural biovalue', produced by quality agriculture, and 'biotechnological biovalue'. It is argued that the bioeconomy and the production of natural biovalue deserve specific attention and that a sustainable bioeconomy should not undermine the potential of natural biovalue through competition for the same land and water resources. ?????? 2013 The Agricultural Economics Society and the European Association of Agricultural Economists

Divergent paradigms of European agro-food innovation: the Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy (KBBE) as an R&D agenda

The Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy (KBBE) has gained prominence as an agricultural R&D agenda of the European Union. Specific research policies are justified as necessary to create a KBBE for societal progress. Playing the role of a master narrative, the KBBE attracts rival visions; each favours a different diagnosis of unsustainable agriculture and its remedies in agro-food innovation. Each vision links a technoscientific paradigm with a quality paradigm: the dominant life sciences vision combines converging technologies with decomposability, while a marginal one combines agro-ecology with integral product integrity. From these divergent visions, rival stakeholder networks contend for influence over research policies and priorities, especially within the Framework Programme 7 (FP7) on Food, Agriculture, Fisheries and Biotechnology (FAFB), which has aimed to promote a Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy. Although the FAFB programme has favoured a life sciences vision, agro-ecological approaches have gained a presence, thus overcoming their general lock-out from agricultural research agendas. In their own way, each rival paradigm emphasises the need for collective systems to gather information for linking producers with users, as a rationale for the public sector to fund distinctive research priorities

The rise of flex crops and commodities: implications for research

As a concept and phenomenon, ‘flex crops and commodities’ feature ‘multiple-ness’ and ‘flexible-ness’ as two distinct but intertwined dimensions. These key crops and commodities are shaped by the changing global context that is itself remoulded by the convergence of multiple crises and various responses. The greater multiple-ness of crops and commodity uses has altered the patterns of their production, circulation and consumption, as novel dimensions of their political economy. These new patterns change the power relations between landholders, agricultural labourers, crop exporters, processors and traders; in particular, they intensify market competition among producers and incentivize changes in land-tenure arrangements. Crop and commodity flexing have three main types – namely, real flexing, anticipated/speculative flexing and imagined flexing; these have many intersections and interactions. Their political-economic dynamics involve numerous factors that variously incentivize, facilitate or hinder the ‘multiple-ness’ and/or ‘flexible-ness’ of particular crops and commodities. These dynamics include ‘flex narratives’ by corporate and state institutions to justify promotion of a flex agenda through support policies. In particular, a bioeconomy narrative envisages a future ‘value web’ developing more flexible value chains through more interdependent, interchangeable products and uses. A future research agenda should investigate questions about material bases, real-life changes, flex narratives and political mobilization