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Africa: U.S., Sweden, Bank Launch Fund to Spur African Agriculture
BY KATHRYN MCCONNELL, 9 MAY 2013 Washington — The United States, Sweden and the African Development Bank have launched a fund to encourage accelerated private investment in sub-Saharan Africa’s agricultural infrastructure to connect small farmers with international markets. Announced May 9 in Cape Town, South Africa, at the Grow Africa Investment Forum, the fund — called Agriculture Fast Track — will be funded by $15 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and $10 million from the government of Sweden. It was developed with support from USAID and will be managed by the African Development Bank. The fund will focus on countries that are part of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, an initiative launched in 2012 at the G8 Camp David Summit near Washington. Through the New Alliance, the G8 major industrialized nations, African countries and the private sector aim to help lift 50 million people in sub-Saharan Africa out of poverty by 2022 by supporting agricultural development. The New Alliance matches market-oriented reforms in the African member countries of Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia with $3.7 billion of planned private investments in the agriculture sector. (Mali is under review.) “Since the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition was founded last year, we’ve seen member countries make serious reforms that have led to real progress,” said USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah. “The launch of the Agriculture Fast Track allows African farmers to take advantage of these reforms through fast-tracked infrastructure projects that will better deliver their products to markets.” Global food demand is expected to grow by as much as 60 percent by 2050, USAID says. With 60 percent of the world’s untilled arable land, predominantly farm-based economies, plentiful natural resources, significant gains in technology and private investment, Africa has the potential to feed not just its own people but others as well. Improved roads, ports and rail lines are critically needed to achieve that, USAID says. Grow Africa is a partnership that seeks to accelerate investments and change in African agriculture based on national agricultural priorities. It says that for Africa to reduce poverty and food insecurity, partners need to renew and increase their commitments to work together and to integrate what they’ve learned to ensure that their investments are inclusive, sustainable and transformative. USAID and Grow Africa support the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development established by the African Union in 2003. Continue reading
How EU Subsidies Inflate Biofuel Prices
Published 08 May 2013, updated 10 May 2013 Public subsidies constitute a powerful market intervention that indirectly inflate biofuel prices, argues Chris Charles. Industry criticisms of the International Institute of Sustainable Development’s research on the subject fall wide of the mark, he writes. Chris Charles is a project manager with the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Global Subsidies Initiative. The costs and benefits of biofuels have been hotly debated in the European Union, where the EU and member states both have ambitious renewable fuel targets – to be met largely through biofuels. Some have charged that supporting biofuels is not a cost-effective way to replace oil-based liquid fuels, reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, or support rural and innovative development. Others argue that the economic and environmental benefits make biofuels a ‘win-win’ source of energy. So where does the truth lie? It was with that question in mind that the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Global Subsidies Initiative recently published ‘ Biofuels – At What Cost, A review of costs and benefits of EU biofuels policy ’ . The study found that the EU spent €9.3 billion to €10.7 billion subsidising biofuels in 2011. The study questions whether the current use of biofuel support measures is the most efficient means of addressing climate change and promoting economic growth. A number of issues have been raised about the study by Eric Sievers and Rob Vierhout, both of whom represent the EU ethanol industry, in a commentary published last week by EurActiv ( Biofuels: Who’s subsidising whom? ). Their commentary questioned IISD’s subsidy estimates, and suggested that the method used to determine them was flawed. I would like to address some of the more serious critiques by Sievers and Vierhout with respect to our research. IISD contributes to sustainable development by advancing policy recommendations on a range of key issues, such as international trade and investment, economic policy, climate change and energy. The IISD is independent of all governments, suppliers and consumer groups. Its focus is on providing high quality, independent, freely available policy research to improve transparency and debate. The Institute established the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) in 2005 to analyse subsidies and how they support or undermine efforts to achieve sustainable development. The GSI has a comprehensive program on energy subsidies that includes fossil-fuels (oil, coal and gas production and consumption), and parallel programmes on biofuels and renewable electricity. Its research is guided by the use of the best available information, using data from public accounts and state-of-the-art literature. Factual information is supported by references, with assumptions supporting calculations clearly stated, so stakeholders are able to critique, disagree, or provide alternative analysis. Independent peer-review of research is an important quality control measure. The report in question was peer-reviewed by respected non-governmental organisations, inter-governmental and governmental organisations, such as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (United Kingdom), the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), Imperial College London, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) . The GSI follows a three-stage approach to subsidy analysis: define, measure, and evaluate. Different approaches to one or more of these stages, and how they are combined, lead to different interpretations of the scale and impact of support measures. Sievers and Vierhout question our approach to measuring the size of the subsidy to the EU biofuel industry. The subsidy definition applied by the IISD in developing the 2011 subsidy estimate of €9.3 billion to €10.7 billion follows the WTO’s Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM) negotiated by 158 member countries. Following the WTO definition, our analysis includes market price support and market transfers, which include government’s policies that mandate transfers between consumers and producers. It also includes excise tax exemptions, where biofuels are exempted from taxes applied to petrol and diesel, and the use of biofuel mandates requiring the use of biofuels in road transport markets. Mandates require that a certain percentage of road transport fuels must come from biofuels, with the share often rising over time. These are a powerful market intervention that provides the biofuel industry with an important financial benefit in the form of market security, which in turn raises biofuel prices. Some in the biofuel sector view mandates as a technical policy resulting from the application of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). While we are confident in our methodology – and have consistently applied it other studies – we have also encouraged discussion on the range of approaches that are available. For example, the International Energy Agency (IEA), which applies a method that multiplies the volumes of biofuels consumed by the difference of their cost to the reference price of comparable petroleum-based product, estimates support to the EU biofuel industry in 2011 at $11 billion (or €8.4 billion). Different subsidy estimates will result in differing carbon abatement costs for reducing emissions and different calculations of the per litre subsidy for biofuels. And not all biofuels are the same – the costs and benefits of biofuels differ, including by feedstock and production process. The IISD seeks to encourage a full debate on whether subsidies represent the best use of public funds against public policy objectives, based on both its own research and the work of others. Research put forth by the biofuel industry should also be transparent, referenced, and ideally reviewed by independent organisations. This includes issues such as job numbers, where it is often not clear if figures developed by the biofuel industry include direct, indirect or induced jobs, or gross or net jobs. Tax payments also provide an example where data provided by the industry would benefit from greater transparency and information sharing. The question should not be ‘who‘s subsidising whom?’ but how best to invest public funds for an environmentally, socially and economically prosperous future. Continue reading
Biofuel From Wood: Researchers Look For Best Enzymes
Mark Hoffman First Posted: May 13, 2013 04:18 PM EDT Huge amounts of fossil fuel could be replaced by biofuels if it was possible to extract them from the very plentiful waste product lignocellulose. Importantly, its use in biofuel production does not interfere with the animal or human food chain. Researchers are currently trying to find the best enzymes to make bioethanol production as efficient as possible and elucidating the mechanisms behind the key process of enzymatic hydrolysis. Lignocellulose is the main component of currently poorly used waste materials from agriculture, forestry and wood-based industries, including straw, corn leaves and stalks as well as paper mill waste. Composed of carbohydrate polymers tightly bound to the tough material lignin, enzymatic breakdown and microbial fermentation of the carbohydrates can be used for production of bioethanol, the researchers explained. (Photo : Flickr) On the downside, however, lignocellulose is what makes woody material so indestructible and so difficult to decompose. The EU-funded project DISCO aimed to develop and test more efficient and cost-effective enzymes for breakdown of carbohydrates in lignocellulose for production of bioethanol over the past years. To achieve this goal, DISCO researchers reported that they isolated naturally occurring enzymes from fungi and bacteria in soil samples, culture collections and metagenomic libraries. Altogether, almost 700 lignocellulytic strains were screened, yielding tens of interesting fungi for cellulose and hemicellulase activity. Genome mining from the fungus Myceliphthora thermophila resulted in nearly 20 novel cellulases and hemicellulases and multiple bacterial carbohydrate active enzymes were discovered from soil metagenomic libraries. Knowledge on the mode of enzyme action is crucial to the success of lignocellulose breakdown. Lignocellulose is composed of cellulose fibrils linked together with hemicelluloses, all embedded in lignin. The researchers said that they thus specifically looked for synergy, efficiency and ability to degrade the entire backbone of the hemicellulose molecule. Besides hemicellulose, the inhibiting effect of lignin on cellulases/hemicellulases was also analyzed. Project scientists also investigated the effects of different pre-treatments on chemistry and enzymatic digestibility of agricultural residues. On hydrothermally pre-treated wheat straw, temperature and residence time had a marked effect on enzyme digestibility. Discovery of new recyclable enzymes promises to supply biofuel to supplement other less sustainable forms of energy. Further details and research papers can be found on the DISCO website ( http://www.disco-project.eu ). Continue reading
