The bioeconomy concept bears fundamental inconsistencies

From left to right: Ingrid Jakobsen, Josephine Koch, Stig Tanzmann

By Ingrid Jakobsen, Josephine Koch and Stig Tanzmann

The effects that global warming is having on the world’s climate are becoming more and more obvious. Humanity has to liberate itself from dependence on fossil fuels, for burning them is the chief cause of climate change, which in turn is massively accelerating species extinction. This applies equally to energy supply and to substitutes for plastics and other mineral oil-based materials. Our economy should therefore be based largely on “bio”, i.e. on renewable rather than fossil raw materials. At the same time, the bioeconomy is to take the edge off the hunger crisis, and food security is to be achieved world-wide. This sounds good, and in principle, the bioeconomy does hold a huge potential.

However, the challenges the bioeconomy is facing have increased since it was at the centre of debate at the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) in Berlin, Germany, ten years ago. For example, the goal of achieving a world without hunger by 2030 has shifted to the distant future. Following initial success in combating hunger, the number of people suffering a lack of food has been on the rise again since 2016. Globally, more than 700 million people are severely affected by hunger. Over two billion do not have regular access to adequate food.

In the areas central to the bioeconomy, such as climate, biodiversity and observing the planetary boundaries, things look just as disastrous. World-wide, the year 2024 was the warmest one on record. The consequences are increasing water shortage, droughts and extreme weather events devastating entire regions. Vanishing species and the loss of biodiversity are assuming hitherto unknown dimensions. Two million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction. And no change is on the horizon.

Problematic impacts of uncontrolled biomass cultivation

More and more countries in and beyond the European Union have adopted bioeconomy strategies of their own in order to promote the development of an economy based on biological resources. However, transforming our economies into renewable resources is complex. Here, biomass plays a key role. It is used as an alternative source of energy for the production of biogas, biodiesel or bioethanol. In addition, it is to replace fossil raw materials in the production of bio-plastics, packaging and building material and be used as food or for the production of animal feed. The chemical industry also wants to employ biomass in the manufacture of basic chemicals, solvents and additives. Thus huge amounts of biomass would have to be produced to maintain German living standards at the present level. However, already today, the local ecosystems from which this biomass is to be taken are dramatically over-exploited. Climate change and measures needed to conserve biodiversity additionally strongly restrict options to use biomass sustainably.

Accordingly, the claim formulated in drawing up the German biomass strategy to avoid shifting effects in the production of biomass in the Global South has been given up. Today, many projects addressing the production of biomass are indeed being run in countries in the Global South. Since they require fertile soils and much water, and have to have good access to infrastructure for exports, they are often situated in the core areas of local food production, i.e. along riverbanks or in the former green belts on the peripheries of major cities. Projects involving the production of biomass are usually more lucrative than local food production and are promoted by corporations. Therefore, they frequently go hand in hand with the displacement of smallholder producers.

Long-term damage and ousted food production

Biomass has to grow fast and be easy to harvest and process. This is why it is frequently produced with the aid of fast-growing plants in plantations by using genetically modified seeds and large amounts of fertiliser and pesticides, all of which has devastating impacts on biodiversity and the diversity of food production. Fertile cropland used for the industrial production of biomass is often rendered useless for food production for years owing to the pollution of local groundwater with herbicides and the leaching of soils. Thus so far uncontrolled biomass cultivation at different levels is in strong competition with food production and the existence of smallholdings which, especially in the countries of the Global South, form the backbone of food supply. Given rising numbers of people suffering hunger, the use of cropland to maintain consumption patterns in the Global North is unacceptable.

Causing suffering in the Global South while creating benefits for large-scale corporations  

Many projects concerning the production of biomass for use by the bioeconomy in the Global North are run in fragile or autocratic states which oppress the rights of civil society. Examples here include DR Congo, Sierra Leone or El Salvador. At least on paper, projects commissioned by the Global North have to meet high human rights standards in order to receive necessary financing and authorisation in bilateral negotiations. However, in fragile states, the institutional preconditions required to really maintain these standards are usually lacking. Human rights violations are widespread, whether through smallholders being driven from cropland they own, overuse or pollution of drinking water sources, slave-like working conditions or involuntary resettling. Generally, the people affected, often already marginalised groups, have no possibility to defend themselves against such projects threatening their livelihoods.

The insufficient enforcement of binding minimum standards to safeguard human rights and fulfilment of socio-ecological requirements regarding biomass production as well as fair trade in biomass production result in major agro corporations and local power elites benefiting from the bioeconomy policy in particular. They enjoy considerable lobbying power or that of market monopolies in asserting their interests – power that consumers and smallholder food producers lack.

It is not only the countries of the Global North which are drivers of an exploitative bioeconomy. This is reflected in the 10 principles of Brazil’s 2024 G20 bioeconomy initiative. Brazil itself, Indonesia and Argentina are supporting this initiative which reproduces old problems and fails to relate to the resolutions of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), in particular those on land, gender and agroecology.

Embedding the bioeconomy in the global governance structure

Inconsistencies within the use of bioeconomic concepts can only be resolved by the people affected by hunger and undernutrition being involved in decisions taken when food or land is used for bioeconomic purposes. Here, the CFS is the guiding positive example. The bioeconomy needs a global governance structure based on the CFS. This would enable those concerned to get organised and take part in the processes determining what is to be made use of in the bioeconomy and how it is to be used. Fundamental human rights principles ought to play a crucial role, such as the principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), which is enshrined in particular in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It states that indigenous or local communities have to give consent freely and based on being informed in advance before projects such as raw materials extraction, infrastructure or agricultural investment can be carried out on their land or affecting their way of life. This includes a “Right to No”.

In addition, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) ought to be integrated in decision-making on the bioeconomic use of food and land, for it constantly faces the challenge of not having access to sufficient amounts of food to provide for people suffering from food shortage.

Tackling the challenges of protecting biodiversity, the climate and soils

Given the challenges described above which the concept of bioeconomy faces, it is of key importance to restrict the club governance of the G7, the G20 or the linking up of emerging economies e.g. in the BRICS context. Instead,  multilateral frameworks should be developed further. Here, an important step has already been taken with regard to relating the right to food to environmental and climate topics. In a CFS working programme covering several years, a line of activity has been established which is not only seeing to a better coordination in the case of food crises and to the general realisation of the right to food, but also to more intensive links between the CFS and the three Rio Conventions on biodiversity (CBD), climate (UNFCCC) and desertification (UNCCD). More such links are necessary in order to create adequate responses to the multiple crises. The bioeconomy ought to be given a multilateral framework in the UN institutions. In this manner, the aforementioned approaches to overcoming their contradictions could be discussed and resolved precisely where the people concerned or their representatives are able to participate inclusively in decision-making processes.

Revising national bioeconomy strategies

In addition, the individual countries have to make changes to their bioeconomy strategies so that the bioeconomy does not remain an apparent solution in a green guise but makes a relevant contribution to combating global warming without jeopardising food production and biological diversity. Germany’s new government has to make efforts to achieve this. Measures to reduce the enormous consumption of resources and biomass demand have to be put into concrete and binding terms.

One glimmer of hope is the final declaration of this year’s GFFA in Berlin, which was adopted by the agriculture ministers of more than 60 countries. It relates strongly to the right to food and the resolutions of the CFS as well as to agroecology and the circular economy. The note of protest handed to ministers of agriculture at the GFFA also shows how bioeconomy can be conceived in a different manner. 

Ingrid Jacobsen is a consultant for food security, climate and agriculture with Brot für die Welt in Berlin, Germany. She previously worked as a research assistant at universities in Berlin and Dortmund and as a consultant for national and international development organisations, among other topics on poverty alleviation, food security and access to land. Ingrid holds a PhD in economic geography.
Contact: Ingrid.Jacobsen(at)brot-fuer-die-welt.de

Josephine Koch is a consultant for raw materials and resource policy with the German NGO Forum on Environment and Development in Berlin, Germany. There she is also co-coordinator for the Working Group on Agriculture and Food. She previously worked as a project manager for local and international environmental initiatives. Josephine studied political science, sociology and German language and literature.
Contact: koch(at)forumue.de

Stig Tanzmann has been a consultant for agriculture with Brot für die Welt in Berlin, Germany since 2010. He is a farmer and agronomist by profession. Among other areas, his work focuses on agroecology, transforming the food system, realising the right to adequate food, the developmental impact of EU agricultural policy, biodiversity, the bioeconomy, digitalisation in agriculture, genetic engineering and seeds.
Contact: stig.tanzmann(at)brot-fuer-die-welt.de

References:

References:

Hochkirch et al., 2023: A multi-taxon analysis of European Red Lists reveals major threats to biodiversity. 

Daldrup, J., Eppler, U., Gerhardt, P., 2023: Reststoffe für die Bioökonomie - Zwischen Hoffnung und Realität. Denkhaus Bremen.

Kill, J., 2020: Bioeconomy at the cost of land grabbing and displacement.

www.deutschlandfunk.de/landgrabbing-in-sierra-leone-schweizer-unternehmen-in-der-100.html

The case of Addax Bioenergy in Sierra Leone https://www.brot-fuer-die-welt.de/fileadmin/mediapool/blogs/Kruckow_Caroline/EN-Land_Briefing_Addax.pdf.

https://www.suedwind-magazin.at/landraub-fuer-bioethanol-in-sierra-leone/

Protestnote GFFA_Final en-GB.docx