The bio-based economy needs more support

“One Planet – Sustainable Bioeconomy Solutions for Global Challenges” was the motto of the Global Bioeconomy Summit (GBS) 2024, which took place in Kenya, Nairobi, in late October 2024. The two-day conference centred on the potential of bioeconomy for decarbonising the economy and building climate resilience, while conserving biodiversity, fostering food security and nutrition, tackling health challenges and driving economic growth.Representatives from policy, science and civil society discussed achievements and stumbling blocks on the way from a fossil-fuel-based to a bio-based economy, while enterprises from across the world presented their bio-based solutions – from various forms of food waste reduction through wastewater treatment to artificial intelligence (AI)  based drug development.  

Making bioeconomy activities attractive for private business

To date, more than 60 countries have adopted national bioeconomy strategies, and there are also three regional strategies. Here, Mexico’s bioeconomy strategy for agriculture may serve as an example. Its main goals were presented by the country’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Julio Berdegué Sacristán, in his video message. They include adding value to the estimated 70 million tons of biomass accumulating annually in the country through crop production and stimulating private sector investment. There would be no subsidies for enterprises, although indirect support would be available e.g. via investment in necessary infrastructure (water, energy, transport). The Minister announced support for small and medium-sized enterprises promoting agroecology-related issues – for example through producing bio-fertilisers – through financing and technical assistance, “to help these enterprises grow and consolidate”.

Hopes placed in “the first active science president”

Like all the others addressing the conference, Berdegué Sacristán emphasised that the bioeconomy could only expand if research in science and technology was improved and increased. Here, important impulses are to be given by the newly established Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. It was initiated by President Claudia Sheinbaum, elected on the 1^st October. Sheinbaum, a qualified physicist and environmental engineer, is not only Mexico’s, and indeed Latin America’s, first woman President, but also “the first active scientist president”, as the Minister emphasised.

Bringing young researchers from lab to field

The importance of upgrading the research infrastructure was also stressed by Peggy Oti-Boateng, Executive Director of the African Academy of Sciences. While accelerating the science and technology agenda was a core element of the African Union’s Agenda 2063, not much had happed over the past ten years. Capacity building and addressing previously neglected sectors such as the ocean economy was important to generate the critical mass of innovators on the continent. Referring to the exemplary work of young scientists, Oti-Boateng emphasised the importance of ensuring that these researchers get out of the lab to the market. “We must link economy to open science,” she noted.

Finance and policy support as a bottleneck

While in many countries the role of bioeconomy is widely recognised in science, implementing it often turned out to be difficult, the speakers agreed. One of the stumbling blocks was that bioeconomy solutions were costly and needed time. This had for example been revealed in the projects on regenerative agriculture and agroecology which the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) had conducted together with the German Development Cooperation and Care Foundation. “Somebody must step in to enable farmers to adopt and scale sustainable practices,”stated Jean Jacques Muhinda, AGRA’s Regional Manager for East and South Africa. “If you want to convince policy-makers to support new practices you must generate evidence for investment cases and show its potential for job creation.”

Making the bioeconomy inclusive

The Africa Director of CIFOR-ICRAF, Peter Minang, emphasised the vast potential of forests for generating value addition while providing ecosystem services to make poor people benefit.  “We need to think of poverty as centre-stage,” said Minang, referring to the African context and, especially, the rapidly rising population in the Congo Basin. Anamika Dey, Chief Executive Officer at The Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN) India, also stressed the need to ensure that poor people were not excluded from developments. Promoting as much in situ value addition as possible and guaranteeing benefit sharing with local communities, particularly women, as well as capacity building of local communities had to be part of the bioeconomy agenda.

Inventorising indigenous knowledge

Like Anamika Dey Mónica Trujillo, project manager of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)’s Governing Bioeconomy Pathways Initiative, also called for thoroughly documenting and systematising traditional knowledge to avoid its being ignored. After all, in many cases, it had proved to be a valuable source of technology for solving today’s problems. Trujillo referred to the example of using biochar as important way to capture CO₂. This method originates from Amazonia, where it had already been developed and implemented by Indigenous people an estimated 2,500 years back to enrich soils so that they remained fertile for decades (known as Terra Preta, which means “black earth” in Portuguese). Fortunate Muyambi, Deputy Executive Secretary of the East African Science and Technology Commission in Rwanda, reported that his organisation was inventorising traditional knowledge and creating a respective database. Here, he stressed the importance of securing intellectual property rights.

Job creation potential shouldn’t be overrated

Notwithstanding great enthusiasm regarding the potential of the bio-based economy, criticism was also voiced. “I really have doubts about what the quality and quantity of green jobs is that bioeconomy can create,” said Lucía Pittaluga, a professor at the Technological University of Uruguay and member of the International Advisory Council on Global Bioeconomy. Her research on innovation in agriculture – including forests – had shown that digitalisation was replacing a lot of tasks, helping for example to attract young people in agriculture. But there was no research evidence that green jobs were being created in the quantity that the countries in the Global South needed. And one thing had to be clear: “It has to be decent work.”

The GBS 2024 Communiqué

In its 2024 Final Communiqué, the International Advisory Council on Global Bioeconomy states the following recommendations:

• Integrate bioeconomy strategies into economic policy
• Create a Global Bioeconomy Partnership bringing different existing initiatives together to share perspectives
• Facilitate the development of standards and regulations to enable fast and broad market access for bioeconomy innovations
• Support regional and local initiatives to grow and link with the global bioeconomy
• Include teaching Bioeconomy principles at all education levels

About bioeconomy and the GBS
The Global Bioeconomy Summit (GBS) has been organised by the International Advisory Council on Global Bioeconomy (IACGB) with the support of the respective partner countries since 2015. The Summit is intended to serve as a platform for fostering dialogue among diverse stakeholders in this multi-disciplinary sector, promoting the exchange of best practices and identifying opportunities for collaboration and innovation. The GBS of 2015, 2018 and 2020 took place in Berlin, Germany. This year’s fourth GBS was hosted by the East African Science and Technology Commission (EASTECO) under the East African Community (EAC), the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe)/BioInnovate Africa, and Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).

The IACGB defines bioeconomy as follows: “The bioeconomy is the production, utilization, conservation, and regeneration of biological resources, including related knowledge, science, technology, and innovation, to provide sustainable solutions (information, products, processes and services) within and across all economic sectors and enable a transformation to a sustainable economy. The bioeconomy is not a static notion and its meaning is continually evolving.”

Silvia Richter, Rural 21

More information:

Website of the International Advisory Council on Global Bioeconomy (IACGB)

AKADEMIYA 2063 Report: "Advancing the climate and bioeconomy agenda in Africa for resilient and sustainable agrifood systems"

Rural 21 issue on "Bioeconomy"