Tag Archives: food
European Union Directive Is Driving Biofuel Production
EU Renewable Energy Directive targets set to benefit the agriculture industry By Jonathan Turney | Published Jul 01, 2013 Bioethanol as a renewable transport fuel (RTF) is set to become one of the most important markets for British agriculture. The UK currently imports the majority of its high-protein animal feed requirements, making British farmers particularly susceptible to volatile overseas commodity markets. The bio-refining of low-grade UK wheat to bioethanol provides a solution to this, as it produces a high-protein animal feed co-product (dry distillers grains with solubles), thereby reducing the need to import protein substitutes (such as soy) from more ecologically sensitive parts of the world. At the same time, the European Union Renewable Energy Directive (RED), which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, creates a huge market for RTFs. Under the EU mandate, 10 per cent of the total road transport fuel pool must come from blended RTFs by 2020. RTFs such as bioethanol are currently one of only a few commercially viable and technologically proven alternatives to fossil fuels that can realistically address unprecedented climate change. Other fossil fuel alternatives remain a long way from availability and are unlikely to achieve the same market penetration. Electric vehicles, for instance, are only expected to replace approximately 0.1 per cent of road transport fuel by 2020. Likewise, longer-term projections of the effectiveness of hydrogen fuel cells are still unproven, so are unlikely to materially contribute to the emissions-reduction strategy. The UK is well placed to be a global leader in RTF production, with a domestic surplus of low-grade feed wheat – currently exported – required in the bio-refining process and a large domestic market for petroleum. In addition, the UK has a highly skilled workforce, relative to other parts of the world. The northeast of England is particularly well suited for RTF production as it has close proximity to arable land, existing petrochemical infrastructure and a deep-water port on the Humber, all of which provide optimum conditions for the domestic production of RTFs. The UK farming and agriculture industry stands to benefit greatly from this. The high-protein animal feed, which is produced as part of the bio-refining process, can be used directly for feeding UK livestock and negates the need to import other high-protein animal feeds. Concerns have been raised in the past about the benefits and disadvantages of using food in RTF production, the so-called ‘food versus fuel’ argument. This is not relevant here since the bio-refining process actually enhances the food chain rather than erodes it, with the efficient extraction and use of the raw commodity’s constituent components being starch and protein. Moreover, a government review in 2008 also found that RTF policies had less of an impact on food prices for cereal-based RTFs than other feedstocks. Cereal crop prices ranged from a drop in price of 2.6 per cent in the EU to an increase of just 2.6 per cent in southern Africa and Brazil. On the other hand, oilseeds, the feedstock for most biodiesels, were the worst affected, with projected price increases of 50-72 per cent. Away from agriculture, the UK as a whole also stands to gain economically from increased production of RTFs. To meet the RED mandates, the UK will need to install further RTF capacity by 2020. To achieve this, the RTF industry is creating new jobs and reinvigorating manufacturing opportunities in economically deprived parts of the country, and is receiving considerable political support to ensure the UK is not perceived as being the laggard in Europe. Investment in RTFs, therefore, can provide a win-win situation for the agricultural industry, investors and the UK manufacturing industry alike, as the UK continues to work hard to fulfil its Renewable Transport Fuel obligations by 2020. Jonathan Turney is associate director at Future Capital Partners Continue reading
EU Ministers Pave The Way For Historic CAP Reform Deal
26 June 2013 | By Alistair Driver REFORM of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that will enshrine the ‘concept’ of greening of direct payments is likely to be confirmed in Brussels later today. EU Ministers, under the chairmanship of the Irish presidency of the EU, signed off its position at a meeting in Luxembourg late into Tuesday night, following two days of exhaustive talks. The Irish Presidency will now take the revised CAP proposals to Brussels to be passed by the full European Parliament in a meeting later on Wednesday. A press briefing is scheduled for approximately 4pm when the parties leading the negotiation hope to announce the broad political deal. This would not be the end of, however, as the detailed legal text is unlikely to be completed until the autumn. In some of the key elements of the EU Ministers’ text: Flexibility has been granted for member states regions to green direct payments in a way that reflects national circumstances. Ecological Focus Areas under CAP greening will start at 5 per cent possibly rising to 7 per cent in 2017 . On top of 10 per cent compulsory modulation, Governments can now transfer up to 15 per cent of funds from their direct payment pots to their rural development budgets, without co-financing the transfer, as is the case now.There is also scope to move money the other way. More flexibility has been granted in the move towards area payments. Member states/regions must ensure all payments are within 60 per cent of the national/regional average by 2019. Member states will be able to allocate 8 and 13 per cent (more in some cases with Commission approval) of the direct payment budget on coupled subsidies. The sugar quota regime will go in 2017. The young farmers scheme taking up to 2 per cent of direct payments will be compulsory. The ‘active farmer’ definition will exclude certain land uses with a negative list. Commenting from Luxembourg in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Defra Secretary Owen said the UK broadly supported a mandate agreed by the 27 EU Ministers. He ‘warmly congratulated’ Irish Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney for his work so far in brokering a deal. “Negotiations between 27 agriculture ministers, the EU commission and the European parliament were never going to be easy. We all have different ambitions for CAP reform and the Irish Presidency has had a really tough job trying to get a deal,” he said. He said the UK had got its way in some areas, for example ‘blocking a host of regressive proposals that would have meant a very bad deal for British farmers and taxpayers’ but not others. “We want to get the best possible reform for our farmers, taxpayers and consumers whilst delivering a better outcome for the environment,” he said. He said the UK, backed by Germany, ‘resisted every step of the way’ planned market organisation reforms driven by French MEP Michel Dantin that would have taken the CAP ‘back to the dark days of butter mountains and wine lakes, with costly interventions in the market’. “All along I have rejected moves that would increase costs for hard pressed consumers. British shoppers should not have to pay twice for the CAP – once through their taxes and again at the supermarket tills,” he said. He said pressure from the UK led to ‘significant progress’ to improve measures for the UK sugar industry, bringing the end of quotas back to 2017 rather 2020, as some MEPs were advocating. While this will be welcomed by UK sugar producers Mr Paterson said it was still ‘not enough’. Sugar beet quotas are bad for business and bad for consumers, driving up the wholesale price of sugar by 35 per cent and adding 1 per cent on our food bills. The case for better access to cane sugar is still being negotiated thanks to our efforts,” he said. He said there is now ‘absolute clarity from the Commission that each of the four parts of the UK can implement CAP as they see fit’, he added. “Farmers in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales can be reassured that their governments have the complete freedom to deliver a CAP tailored to their needs and circumstances. This successful outcome is a result of working as a united force with all Devolved Administrations and respecting regional farming priorities. I am pleased we have been able to agree changes needed for all four countries,” he said. He welcomed the ‘further gains’ to secure flexibility on greening measures to benefit the environment and UK farming but expressed anger that UK efforts to block ‘coupled payments at a high level’ had failed. He said coupled subsidies, which Scotland and possibly Wales are likely to utilise under the reformed policy ‘create market distortions, are a poor use of tax payers’ money and discourage trading in a competitive open market’. He concluded: “I hope the negotiations will be completed today in Brussels, providing much needed certainty and clarity for farmers.” EU Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos said Tuesday’s Agriculture Council gave a negotiating mandate to the Irish Presidency: “Negotiations on CAP reform have made good progress in the past few days, which makes me confident of our capacity to reach a political agreement. We have made important steps forward on each of the four regulations of the legislative package,” he said. “However, there are still open issues on which the European Parliament, the Irish Presidency and the European Commission need to find the right balance. “Trilogues will restart in Brussels tomorrow with the view to finding a political agreement on the CAP reform.” Continue reading
Investing In Locally Controlled Forestry Is A Triple Win
We need a better investment model to deliver food, fuel and fibre without sacrificing forests, which would benefit the economy, society and environment Duncan Macqueen Guardian Professional , Monday 29 October 2012 09.00 GMT A woman sells shea butter at a market. Women in the shea butter forests of Burkina Faso have benefited from investment in locally controlled forests. Photograph: Thierry Gouegnon/Reuters Forests are feeling the squeeze. Overall forest loss ran at 5.2m hectares per year between 2000-2010, driven principally by increasing consumer demand for food, fuel and fibre from a global population soaring upwards of 7 billion. People are the ultimate losers; half a billion indigenous people and 1.3 billion others whose livelihoods are attuned to and dependent on forests, are losing more, and more quickly than others. But of course all of us indirectly and ultimately depend on forests; to sequester carbon and slow climate change, to maintain water and soil cycles on which food, fuel and fibre production depends, and to preserve biodiversity to allow options for adaptation in an uncertain future. Some immediately, and all of us ultimately, may pay a heavy price unless we can create an investment opportunity that delivers food, fuel and fibre without sacrificing them. Justice demands that this opportunity should also prosper indigenous and other forest dependant peoples. This requires a better investment model. Investing in Locally Controlled Forestry (ILCF) has emerged over the last three years as a strong candidate for this better investment model . Dialogues in nine countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America were convened by The Forest Dialogue (TFD) and funded by the Growing Forest Partnership (GFP) initiative and the government of Sweden (where 100 years of ILCF has already taken place . More than 400 people pooled their expertise. Those looking at what was working, and what was not, included not only investors and forest experts, but also representatives of forest rights-holder organisations such as the Global Alliance for Community Forestry, the International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal People’s of the Tropical Forests and the International Family Forest Alliance – k nown collectively as the G3 . The G3 define locally controlled forestry (LCF) as: “The local right for forest owner families and communities to make decisions on commercial forest management and land use, with secure tenure rights, freedom of association and access to markets and technology.” Locally controlled forestry is big news. Forests under some form of local control make up 25% of the world’s forests and provide US$75-US$100bn (£47bn-£62bn) a year in goods and services and there are grounds for hoping this will grow. Strong evidence over the last 60 years documents how LCF often outperforms alternatives such as concessions in economic terms and protected areas in environmental terms. Investing in locally controlled forestry (ILCF) is a paradigm shift – away from capital seeking forest resources and needing labour – towards local rights-holders managing forest resources and seeking capital. It recognises the need to distinguish and blend two types of investment: • Asset investment (conventional investment in which the nominal value of underlying capital is expected to increase or at least not fall) and; • Enabling investment (in which capital is foregone to build the self-sufficiency and attractiveness of the business in question). Clever ways to encourage investors Asset investors shy from investing in local controlled forestry for four main reasons: insecure local commercial forest rights (on which to base a deal); lack of business capacity (to seal the deal); lack of commercial organisation (to make scale worth the costs of due diligence); and a lack of brokers (to match those between whom a deal might be struck). A clever mix of four types of enabling investment is needed to pave the way for asset investment and packaging up enabling and asset investment cleverly can boost asset investor’s confidence. A field visit to the shea butter forests of Burkina Faso is one of many examples, including another in Ethiopia, where four types of enabling investment were used. The Union of Women Producers of Shea Products of Sissili and Ziro was established in 2001 (it became the Nununa Federation in 2011) and processes nuts into shea butter for a range of products like soaps and creams. Enabling investment to negotiate more secure commercial forest rights for shea currently comes from NGO supporters of small forest enterprises such as Tree Aid . But in the interim, Nununa members have circumscribed 3,345 hectares of shea-tree protection areas managed by their members. Enabling investment in business capacity development has come from the cosmetics company L’Occitane, which agreed a commercial deal to buy Shea from 600 women subject to certain quality specifications that then attracted technical partners for development such as the Centre for Study and International Co-operation and the Dutch Interchurch Organisation for Development. Enabling investment to achieve investible scale also came from SNV and Nununa itself. Nununa started as a union among 18 district-wide groups, but now comprises 4,596 members, a growth of 156% in comparison with 2,985 members in 2009. Technical support to achieve fairtrade certification in 2006 and organic certification in 2007 further strengthened the track record. Finally, enabling investment to broker a commercial deal came from SNV whose support to develop a new business model included an investment proposal for the construction of a small factory for the industrial processing of shea butter. A fully mechanised and more efficient production facility was installed with loan finance from the Agridius Foundation. Production costs per kilo of butter decreased by a half from 1.68 €/kg to 0.86 €/kg (£1.4/kg to 0.69/kg) and production volumes doubled. More than 4,000 members have achieved a 95% increase in income from shea production for less work and more status. Investors are getting acceptable returns. Stronger roles and incentives for local women to control, sustainably manage and even enrich the shea forests have been put in place. Scaling-up can be seen to happen organically across very different forest contexts once this clever packaging of enabling and asset investment is understood and applied – as numerous cases in the guide to investing in locally controlled forestry that was launched at COFO21 attest. A new Forest and Farm Facility hosted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation was also launched at Committee on Forestry on 28 September precisely to start to inject the right sort of enabling investments into locally controlled forestry. Duncan Macqueen is team leader for forests at the International Institute for Environment and Development [/color] [/font] Continue reading
