NORTH-SOUTH CENTRE - ETH - North-South Centre North-South ...

Ethanol production impacts on
land use and deforestation
Less-developed countries such as Brazil and Indonesia with
established biofuel production capacities and high land
surpluses stand to benefit from increasing biofuel demand
in both developed and developing economies. However,
there is currently a debate on potential negative impacts
of biofuels. More precisely, the links – either direct or indirect
– between bio-ethanol production, land use and forest
conversion are still not well-understood, neither at the
conceptual nor at the empirical level. Therefore, the objective
of this project is to fill the gap in the literature, by
investigating these direct and indirect links and by measuring
them empirically. In addition, the research findings
from this project are expected to be useful for optimal
policy design both in current biofuel producer and consumer
countries. Potential future producers, such as South
Africa, Colombia and Angola, may also benefit from policy
implications derived from the research output.
output of the food sector. Finally, labour mobility between
sectors and regions tends to decrease food production but
also deforestation. The overall impact of ethanol production
on forest conversion is ambiguous, providing a number
of interesting pointers to further, empirical research.
The second phase of the project is currently being prepared.
It consists on testing the theoretical results, using empirical
data from Brazil – the second world largest bio-ethanol
producer, and an important consumer country. Although
some data is available on-line, a stay in Brazil is necessary
to collect more secondary data via key informants such as
local researchers and governmental institutions (both at
federal and state levels). We also consider this stay to be
an opportunity to disseminate and discuss our theoretical
results with our local partners and with representatives of
government institutions.
The first phase of the project consisted in conceptualising
the impacts of ethanol production resulting in a theoretical
paper identifying three potential effects of ethanol production
on land use and deforestation. First, the standard
and well-documented effect of direct land competition
between rival uses increases deforestation and decreases
food production. Second, an indirect displacement of
food production across regions, provoked by a shift in the
price of food, increases deforestation and reduces the total
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Capacity development
Research fellowships
Research fellow
Saraly Andrade de Sa, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Supervisors
Stefanie Engel, ETH Zurich, Switzerland;
Charles Palmer, London School of Economics, UK
Collaborators
Charlotte Opal, EPFL, Switzerland;
Sven Wunder, CIFOR, Brazil;
Paulo Moutinho, Amazon Environmental
Research Institute IPAM, Brazil
Duration
February 2009 – February 2011
Sugarcane field in São Paulo State,
the main ethanol production area of Brazil