Evaluating the Impacts of Traditional Biomass Energy Use on Agricultural Production in Sichuan, China

As crop straw and firewood are generated as by-products of food production systems, they are perceived to be sustainable energy sources that do not threaten food security by Chinese government for a long time. However, the time spent on collecting straw and firewood may create a burden on rural household, as it could reduce the available labor inputs for agricultural production, which in turn, possibly brings negative impact on food security. Building on an integrated agriculture-energy production system, a Symmetric Normalized Quadratic (SNQ) multi-output profit function (which includes labor allocations as quasi-fixed factors) is estimated to investigate the impacts of traditional biomass energy use on agricultural production in this paper. The negative signs of the calculated cross-price elasticities of supply (agricultural products and biomass energy) confirm that the relationship between biomass collection and agricultural production is competition. Moreover, the cross-price elasticities of biomass collection with respect to inputs are positive, implying that indirect link between biomass collection and agricultural production perhaps lies in household consumption decisions. The important implication of this study is that potential policy interventions for developing biomass energy in rural China could aim at enhancing food security by improving household motivation of engaging in agricultural production and slowing down the competition between biomass collection and agricultural production. It is suggested that government should attach more importance to simultaneously promote the prices of agricultural products and control the prices of intermediate inputs

An assessment of the potential of drylands in eight sub-Saharan African countries to produce bioenergy feedstocks

This paper synthesizes lessons learnt from research that aimed to identify land in the dryland regions of eight sub-Saharan African study countries where bioenergy feedstocks production has a low risk of detrimental environmental and socio-economic effects. The methodology involved using geographical information systems (GISs) to interrogate a wide range of datasets, aerial photograph and field verification, an extensive literature review, and obtaining information from a wide range of stakeholders. The GIS work revealed that Africa's drylands potentially have substantial areas available and agriculturally suitable for bioenergy feedstocks production. The other work showed that land-use and biomass dynamics in Africa's drylands are greatly influenced by the inherent ‘disequilibrium’ behaviour of these environments. This behaviour challenges the sustainability concept and perceptions regarding the drivers, nature and consequences of deforestation, land degradation and other factors. An assessment of the implications of this behaviour formed the basis for the practical guidance suggested for bioenergy feedstock producers and bioenergy policy makers