The Effects of Increased Demand for Biofuels Feedstocks on the World Agricultural Markets and Areas - Outcomes of a Workshop 10-11 February 2010, Ispra (Italy)

Abstract

This study is performed under request of DG CLIMA, in support to the preparation of the policy proposal on the assessment of the effects of Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC). Agro-economic models are used to provide estimates of how much cropland area increases in response to an increase in crop demand, but they often differ in their structure (i.e. partial or full equilibrium, agro-economic, bioenergy and biophysical models etc), in the input parameters, baseline and scenarios studied. The European Commission (EC) is debating internally how to address ILUC emissions in biofuels legislation. Legislators need to understand how ILUC differs between biofuels from different feedstocks and regions. In fact, if ILUC emissions are to be added to direct emissions in legislation, they need to be quantitatively assessed for all biofuels/feedstocks. Anyway, to compare model results it is necessary at least to compare the results vs. baseline per unit quantity of biofuel. For these reasons the JRC proposed to carry out a survey of marginal calculations from various models/methods developed by the relevant consortia in EU and US, to compare results from marginal shocks along the lines of recommended common scenarios discussed with the involved experts: A marginal extra ethanol demand in EU B marginal extra biodiesel demand in EU C marginal extra ethanol demand in US D marginal extra palm oil demand in EU (for biodiesel or pure plant oil use) For modelling the GHG efficiency of different feedstock, the experts agreed that the extra biofuels scenarios should optimally be marginal increases in demand for different biofuels-feedstock in different regions. These results would be relatively easy to compare between scenarios. Results of this survey were discussed during a workshop organized by the JRC in Ispra on 10th and 11th of February 2010, and this report presents the outcomes of the workshop, highlighting the main results of the studies and key points raised in the concluding discussion.