Introduction

From 2007 onwards there was a global debate on biofuels as a potential means to reduce GHG emissions from transport fuel. According to proponents, plant-based feedstock was renewable, low-carbon and thus an environmentally sustainable substitute for fossil fuels; moreover, such flexibly sourced fuels would enhance energy security. On such grounds, new government rules or proposals required a minimum percentage of biofuels in transport fuels, for example, in Brazil, the US and EU.

This agenda drew criticism and became controversial for several reasons. Claims for environmental benefits made several optimistic assumptions about feedstock production, especially oilseeds and soya. As food prices spiked, critics highlighted a conflict between ‘food versus fuel’ in priorities for using land and natural resources, especially water. Oilseed production for other uses had previously incentivized land-grabs, deforestation and more chemical-intensive agri-production; so producing more oilseeds for biofuel feedstock would aggravate such pressures. By stimulating such changes in land use, biofuel substitution for oil may not save GHG emissions and may even increase them, argued some experts (Searchinger et al, 2008).

Moreover, biofuel expansion was blamed for socio-environmental injustices such as resource degradation and land grabs, associated with changes in land use (FIAN International, 2008; ICHRP, 2008). In Brazilian sugarcane production for sugar or bioethanol, workers were being trapped in quasi-slave labour conditions, officially known as trabalho escravo. Many had to be rescued by a government agency (Mendonça, 2006, 2010; MTE, 2010). These systemic harms were later substantiated by academic and expert studies (for example, Borras et al, 2010, 2012; CETRI, 2010; Lehtonen, 2011; Matondi et al, 2011; Action Aid, 2012; Schulze, 2012). In particular, land grabs were driven by ‘demand for biofuel feedstocks as a reflection of policies and mandates in key consuming countries’, according to a World Bank report (Deininger and Byerlee, 2010: 11).

Beyond direct changes in land use, global trade was stimulating crop substitution and thus indirect land-use change (ILUC). As a high-profile example, the US government subsidy for bioethanol led many farmers to switch crops to maize from soya, in turning stimulating greater soya cultivation in Brazil and rainforest destruction for land-clearing there (Laurance, 2007).