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How Will Using Agricultural Land for Biofuels Affect Smallholder Farmers in Developing Countries?
By Martin Price
All of us must be wondering how smallholder farmers that we serve and global consumers of food around the world will be affected by the enormous efforts being made in both temperate and tropical countries to grow their own fuel and move toward energy independence. Most likely reduced competition from imported grains will be good for smallholder farmers and bad for urban consumers. For example, a couple years ago we were hearing that some farmers in Central America were not able to profitably grown corn (maize) because the price of imported corn was so low. This year we heard of protests in the streets of Mexico because so much corn was being used for making “gasohol” in the USA that many could no longer afford their staple tortillas.
Regardless of what we think of using vast amounts of farmland to produce gasohol or biodiesel, it is a growing reality and we need to keep abreast of it. We’ve heard from many in ECHO’s network who are looking for ways to involve even smallholder farmers in producing energy crops, e.g. requests for information and seeds of jatropha. The web article on jatropha published on ECHO’s website (www.echonet.org) received the highest number of hits of any article for several months.
ECHO is not planning on making biofuels a major focus, but will keep our eyes open for insights or opportunities that might be of interest to our readers. Here is one recent example.
Soybean oil is the primary oil used in the United States for biodiesel fuel production. I would not have thought that peanut oil could ever compete with soybean oil as a source of biodiesel. An on-line article about research at the United States Department of Agriculture on http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2007/070730.htm suggests that certain peanuts can produce much more oil than soybeans.
“Soybeans produce approximately 50 gallons of fuel per acre, while traditionally grown peanuts can produce approximately 120 to 130 gallons of biodiesel fuel per acre.” Scientists in Georgia “are testing a peanut variety called Georganic. “It’s not suited to current commercial edible standards for peanuts, but is high in oil and has low production input costs. Georganic-or similar varieties-will likely be the future of peanut biodiesel because it can be planted and grown with just one herbicide application for weed control, compared to the three to four applications typically sprayed during a growing season for edible peanuts. Additionally, these fuel peanuts are grown without fungicides, which are the greatest input cost in traditional peanut production.”
Scientists are screening other peanut varieties that are not good for edible peanuts to see if some may be exceptional for biodiesel.
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