ABSTRACT
Agrofuel politics have been highly contentious over the past decade.2 While agrofuels are widely held to contribute to energy security, local development, and the mitigation of climate change (European Union, 2009), environmental, development and human rights NGOs, as well as a growing body of academic opinion, question the benefits and point to the negative social and environmental impacts of these crops. Agrofuels erode biodiversity (Campbell and Doswald, 2009) and increase greenhouse gas emissions, rather than reducing them, by influencing land use (Searchinger et al., 2008), thus driving climate change (Fargione et al., 2008). They also pose a threat to local food security and cause changes in agricultural regimes (McMichael, 2010). The production of agrofuels has promoted the commodification of crops, the valorization of land and increased export dependency. By influencing land use it gives rise to land access conflicts (Borras et al., 2011; Dietz et al., 2015) and raises major resource justice issues. The introduction and implementation of agrofuel policies by the EU has met with growing opposition. The Biofuels Directive adopted in 2003 set a blending target of 5.75 per cent of agrofuels to be added to conventional fuel by 2010 (European Union, 2003). The Renewable Energy Directive (RED) (European Union, 2009) adopted in 2009 raised this goal to 10 per cent, to be attained by all member states by 2020. Although attempts were made to spin a strong ‘win-win’ narrative around the agrofuel drive, highlighting the supposed economic and environmental benefits, the backlash led to the introduction of sustainability criteria. However, these are strictly environmental and have no social dimension. Criticism has continued to mount, with the spotlight increasingly on indirect land use change, due to the additional greenhouse gas emissions occasioned by the cultivation of ‘virgin’ land needed for food production. In response, in 2015 the European Parliament (2015) reduced the blending target in the RED to 7 per cent for the so-called ‘first generation’ agrofuels produced from food crops. Nevertheless, what is by now a firmly entrenched agrofuel industry still enjoys strong policy and government support.
