Food systems are essential for human food security and nutrition. They are also the source of roughly one third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, making them a central topic for climate mitigation. Focusing on five crops that dominate global agriculture—wheat, maize, rice, soybean and barley––, the study analyzes how their allocation across food, feed, bioenergy and other industrial (non-food) uses affects land, carbon and water footprints. Together, these crops occupy more than half of the world’s arable land and form the backbone of food supply and bio-based economic activities. Drawing on FAOSTAT data and harmonized environmental footprint global datasets, the paper documents current crop-specific production and allocation patterns across different uses and their impacts on sustainability outcomes. It shows how these patterns differ across crops and demonstrates that environmental outcomes depend not only on how crops are produced but also on how they are allocated among competing uses. The analysis then explores four illustrative scenarios: closing yield gaps; reducing food loss and waste; shifting dietary patterns away from high animal-source consumption; and promoting second-generation biofuels. These scenarios allow the identification of significant leverage points for reducing land, carbon and water footprints. Overall, the study shows that crop allocation decisions are a critical yet often overlooked factor in food-system sustainability. By linking environmental footprints to crop uses, it offers a framework for identifying policy priorities and guiding transitions toward more resource-efficient and resilient food systems.
Tag: biofuels
Revealing drought tolerance mechanisms in Pongamia pinnata through integrated physiological, biochemical, and transcriptomic profiling
Pongamia pinnata is a promising biofuel tree species, yet its establishment in drought-prone areas is hindered by poor seedling performance under water stress. This study compared two contrasting genotypes—NRCP9 (tolerant) and NRCP10 (sensitive)—to uncover the physiological and molecular mechanisms of drought tolerance. NRCP9 showed higher peroxidase activity and proline accumulation, while NRCP10 exhibited greater reductions in chlorophyll and water content. Transcriptome analysis revealed over 26,000 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in NRCP9, including transcription factors related to stress signaling and metabolism. These findings provide insights into Pongamia’s adaptive responses and offer a molecular foundation for breeding drought-resilient biofuel crops.
Environmental and social impacts of oil palm plantations and their implications for biofuel production in Indonesia
This paper reviews the development of oil palm with linkages to biofuel in Indonesia and analyzes the associated environmental and socioeconomic impacts. We selected three plantation study sites in West Papua (Manokwari), West Kalimantan (Kubu Raya), and Papua (Boven Digoel) to assess the impacts. Research findings indicate that the development of oil palm in all three sites has caused deforestation, resulting in significant secondary external impacts such as water pollution, soil erosion, and air pollution. In terms of social impacts, many stakeholder groups, i.e., employees, out-growers, and investing households, report significant gains. However, we found these benefits were not evenly distributed. Other stakeholders, particularly traditional landowners, experienced restrictions on traditional land use rights and land losses. We observed increasing land scarcity, rising land prices, and conflicts over land in all sites. Three major trade-offs are associated with the development of oil palm plantations, including those related to biofuels: unevenly distributed economic benefits are generated at the cost of significant environmental losses; there are some winners but also many losers; and economic gains accrue at the expense of weak rule of law. To reduce the negative impacts and trade-offs of oil palm plantations and maximize their economic potential, government decision makers need to restrict the use of forested land for plantation development, enforce existing regulations on concession allocation and environmental management, improve monitoring of labor practices, recognize traditional land use rights, and make land transfer agreements involving customary land more transparent and legally binding.
Land-based Investments for rural development?: A grounded analysis of the local Impacts of biofuel feedstock plantations in Ghana
The rapidly growing biofuel sector in Africa has, in recent years, been received with divided interest. As part of a contemporary wave of agricultural modernization efforts, it could make invaluable contributions to rural poverty. Conversely, it could also engender socioeconomically and environmentally detrimental land use changes as valuable land resources are converted to plantation agriculture. This research analyzes the impacts and impact pathways of biofuel feedstock development in Ghana. It finds that companies are accessing large contiguous areas of customary land through opaque negotiations with traditional authorities, often outside the purview of government and customary land users. Despite lack of participation, most customary land users were highly supportive of plantation development, with high expectations of ‘development’ and ‘modernization.’ With little opposition and resistance, large areas of agricultural and forested land are at threat of being converted to plantation monoculture. A case study analysis shows that this can significantly exacerbate rural poverty as communities lose access to vital livelihood resources. Vulnerable groups, such as women and migrants, are found to be most profoundly affected because of their relative inability in recovering lost livelihood resources. Findings suggest that greater circumspection by government is warranted on these types of large-scale land deals.
Biofuel plantations on forested lands: double jeopardy for biodiversity and climate
The growing demand for biofuels is promoting the expansion of a number of agricultural commodities, including oil palm (Elaeis guineensis). Oil-palm plantations cover over 13 million ha, primarily in Southeast Asia, where they have directly or indirectly replaced tropical rainforest. We explored the impact of the spread of oil-palm plantations on greenhouse gas emission and biodiversity. We assessed changes in carbon stocks with changing land use and compared this with the amount of fossil-fuel carbon emission avoided through its replacement by biofuel carbon. We estimated it would take between 75 and 93 years for the carbon emissions saved through use of biofuel to compensate for the carbon lost through forest conversion, depending on how the forest was cleared. If the original habitat was peatland, carbon balance would take more than 600 years. Conversely, planting oil palms on degraded grassland would lead to a net removal of carbon within 10 years. These estimates have associated uncertainty, but their magnitude and relative proportions seem credible. We carried out a meta-analysis of published faunal studies that compared forest with oil palm. We found that plantations supported species-poor communities containing few forest species. Because no published data on flora were available, we present results from our sampling of plants in oil palm and forest plots in Indonesia. Although the species richness of pteridophytes was higher in plantations, they held few forest species. Trees, lianas, epiphytic orchids, and indigenous palms were wholly absent from oil-palm plantations. The majority of individual plants and animals in oil-palm plantations belonged to a small number of generalist species of low conservation concern. As countries strive to meet obligations to reduce carbon emissions under one international agreement (Kyoto Protocol), they may not only fail to meet their obligations under another (Convention on Biological Diversity) but may actually hasten global climate change. Reducing deforestation is likely to represent a more effective climate-change mitigation strategy than converting forest for biofuel production, and it may help nations meet their international commitments to reduce biodiversity loss.
Response to climate change of montane herbaceous plants in the genus Rhodiola predicted by ecological niche modelling
Redesigning oilseed tree biofuel systems in India
Bio-economic potential of agroforestry-based biofuel systems
Aboveground carbon stocks in oil palm plantations and the threshold for carbon-neutral vegetation conversion on mineral soils
The carbon (C) footprint of palm-oil production is needed to judge emissions from potential biofuel use. Relevance includes wider sustainable palm oil debates. Within life cycle analysis, aboveground C debt is incurred if the vegetation replaced had a higher C stock than oil palm plantations. Our study included 25 plantations across Indonesia, in a stratified study design representing the range of conditions in which oil palm is grown. From allometric equations for palm biomass and observed growth rates, we estimated the time-averaged aboveground C stock for 25-year rotations and 95%-confidence intervals to be 42.07 (42.04-42.10) Mg C ha-1 for plantations managed by company on mineral soil, 40.03 (39.75-40.30) Mg C ha-1 for plantations managed by company on peat, and 37.76 (37.42-38.09) Mg C ha-1 for smallholder oil palm on mineral soils. Oil palm can be established C debt-free on mineral soils with aboveground C stocks below these values; neutrality of mineral soil C pools was documented in a parallel study. Acknowledging variation in shoot:root ratios, the types of vegetation that can be converted debt-free to oil palm include grasslands and shrub, but not monocultural rubber plantations, rubber agroforest, and similar secondary or logged-over forests of higher C stock.
Biofuel from Jatropha curcas: opportuities, challenges and development perspectives
With soaring petroleum prices, the idea of converting agriculture to also produce energy has become a widespread goal of agricultural policies and research. Jatropha curcas is known to thrive with limited amounts of water, nutrients and capital inputs. It is seen as an option to cultivate comparatively marginal lands to produce oil rich seeds for biodiesel, generate additional income, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and possibly help to rehabilitate degraded land.