2008 Joint Annual Meeting (5-9 Oct. 2008): Implications of Biofuels for Food Security and the Poor.

Rapid growth in global demand for biofuels will lead to higher world food prices. For many developing countries this poses a threat and an opportunity. In the short term, higher food prices and a reduction in the availability of concessionary food imports could lead to worsening poverty, hunger and malnutrition. But higher prices will create new opportunities for agricultural investment which in the longer term could promote economic growth and lift many people out of poverty. How these two forces  balance out for the poor will vary considerably across countries and depend to a large extent on the pace of growth in global demand for bioenergy and the resource endowments of individual countries. But national food, energy and trade policies can make an important difference, both in managing the short term price impacts on the poor and in helping farmers to seize new growth opportunities. Technology development can also help reduce the tradeoff between food and energy production and expand the total production of each. Priority should be given to fast tracking the development of second generation bioenergy technologies that use cellulose rich feedstock that can be grown on more marginal lands; breeding energy crops that yield higher amounts of energy per unit of land and water; developing food crops that generate by-products that can be used for bio-energy; and investing in increasing the productivity of food crops themselves, since this would free up additional land and water for bioenergy crops.