STRATEGIES TO LEVERAGE BIOFUEL CROP CO-BENEFITS

Economies in Transition (EiTs) exemplified by countries such as Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova etc. face many socio-economic and environmental challenges – energy security, high unemployment, poor transportation and municipal service infrastructure, and rural depopulation are common themes. Agricultural biofuel production offers a number of socio-economic co-benefits that can contribute to the alleviation of such challenges, particularly in rural areas, but there are significant barriers to establishment of large scale plantings in most countries. With a point of departure in coherent co-benefit strategies that have been demonstrated to some extent in Western and Northern Europe, this paper extends their relevance to the social and economic situation in EiTs. It examines a number of strategies for how agro-biofuel co-benefits might be leveraged to provide both the stimulus required for large scale plantings and tangible flow-on socio-economic benefits. The discussion presents a series of areas where a new industry based on biomass energy carrier production can provide a range of co-benefits of importance. However, it is also noted that large scale modern agriculture – including biofuel agriculture – can have drawbacks that do need to be carefully monitored.