(Bio)Fueling Injustice? - Europafrica

“Export diversion where products were previously used for exports but are
retained within the EU for domestic biofuels production, which must then be
replaced by production elsewhere; and
Diversion of domestic use where products that were previously used for other
domestic purposes such as food and feed are diverted to biofuels, ultimately
resulting in additional imports to meet EU food and feed demands.” 239
This phenomenon has not been quantified precisely yet, but it can be significant,
especially as most of EU demand growth for arable crops is expected to be driven by
biofuels. 240 The rapid expansion in the US of the use of maize to produce ethanol is for
instance known to have caused a surge in demand for soybean. Similarly, in Europe
the rising use of land for oilseeds created a demand for wheat 241 and oil palm for
food. 242 A report mentions for example:
EU rapeseed oil has traditionally been used in the food industry
as a vegetable oil, but increasingly large amounts are now
being used as a feedstock for industrial biofuels. The food
industry has had to turn to a different source, and invariably this
is oil palm from Southeast Asia. If 22% of biodiesel in 2020
comes from domestically produced edible oils, this suggests a
shortfall – which will be filled by palm oil – of about six billion
litres of edible oil requiring another 1-2 million hectares of land
in developing countries. 243
The EU Directorate General for Agriculture itself anticipates for the next decade that
EU agricultural commodities will be increasingly used for biofuel production, and that
there will be an area shift between crops to produce biofuels (and thus less food). 244 It
has been estimated that 37% of future land use change for biofuels in the EU could be
due to this indirect effect. 245
A very recent example from Germany highlights the complexity as well as the
potentially important effects on land use changes in Africa and elsewhere. In January
2011, German newspapers and media highlighted that for the first time in 25 years,
Germany had a negative wheat trade balance (it became dependent on wheat
imports). It was argued that a main cause for that was the conversion of wheat
production to maize production for bioenergy. 246 And the Bio Economic Council, an
advisor of the German government, recommended that Germany should not increase
imports of food to produce biofuels. 247
It will be important to check in future if European investments in land for food
production in Africa are motivated by the EU’s need to replace the land it is using for
biofuels. As the UN Special rapporteur on the right to food argued, “the more biofuels
the EU produces, the more it will be forced to import vegetable oils from the rest of the
world.” 248 This would be an unaccounted way for the EU to outsource part of its food
production because of its biofuel demand, and to use African’s soils for its food needs,
thus putting additional pressure on land in other countries and contributing to land
grabbing.
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