Impacts of biofuel on land-use change

Extracts from a paper (Timilsina G R. Beghin J C van der Mensbrugghe D and Mevel S (2010) 'The impacts of biofuel targets on land-use change and food supply : a global CGE assessment' Policy Research Working Paper, World Bank, Washington DC.) state:

"This study analyzes the long-term impacts of large-scale expansion of biofuels on land-use change, food supply and prices, and the overall economy in various countries or regions using a global computable general equilibrium model, augmented by a land-use module and detailed representation of biofuel sectors.

"The study finds that an expansion of global biofuel production to meet currently articulated or even higher national targets in various countries for biofuel use would reduce gross domestic product at the global level; however, the gross domestic product impacts are mixed across countries or regions. The expansion of biofuels would cause significant land re-allocation with notable decreases in forest and pasture lands in a few countries.

"The results also suggest that the expansion of biofuels would cause a reduction in food supply.  Although the magnitude of the impact on food supply at the global level is not as large as perceived earlier, it would be significant in developing countries like India and those in Sub-Saharan Africa. Agricultural commodities such as sugar, corn, and oil seeds, which serve as the main biofuel feedstocks, would experience significant increases in their prices in 2020 compared with the prices at baseline due to the expansion of biofuels to meet the existing targets."

A few extra paragraphs from the conclusions:
"Our results suggest that planned biofuel targets would not cause large impacts on food supply at the global level although the impacts would be significant in developing countries like India and Sub-Saharan Africa. Agricultural commodities such as sugar, corn and oil seeds (as oil), that serve as the main biofuel feedstocks, would experience 1% to 8% price increases in 2020 as compared to that in the baseline due to the expansion of biofuels to meet the existing targets.

"Our study shows that land use allocation between forest, pasture and crops, would be significantly altered, and leads to considerable forest and pasture destruction in several countries, especially under enhanced targets. Vast expansion of biofuel does lead to global forest losses of about 26.3 million hectares in 2020 under enhanced targets. Once targets are reached, technical progress eventually would reduce the reliance on land to expand agricultural output and forest land could be regained in the longer run. Within the expanded crop land uses, we obtain large effects in several countries implementing large biofuel targets.

"The general tendency is to expand land devoted to feedstock crops (sugar crops, coarse grains and, low quality grains for ethanol; oilseeds for vegetable oil for biodiesel). Again, these effects are large in 2020, because they correspond with the expansion phase of the targets. In the longer run, one would expect that the land expansion would recede and productivity gains would reduce the long term use of land induced in the medium term and the short term constraint on food supply would be reduced. Sugar crops and oilseeds expand the most."