A Framework for Assessing Effects of the Food System (2015) / Chapter Skim
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ANNEX 2: U.S. Biofuels Policy
ANNEX 2: U.S. Biofuels Policy
Pages 303-318
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biofuels policy arose in response to shifting concerns about energy independence, agricultural surpluses, and climate change. Before 2005, when the Renewable Fuel Standard (a production mandate for biofuels)
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The potential for the framework to be used to ana lyze trade-offs and unintended effects in the pursuit of energy and environmental security is illustrated in this annex exploring how the Renewable Fuel Standard might be compared to an alternate policy of eliminating subsidies for fossil fuels. The elimination of such subsidies worldwide is a goal to which numerous interna tional bodies and their member countries, including the United States, have committed, but not yet fulfilled.
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. The Act introduced mandated ethanol use under a Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS1)
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In 20072008, a number of simultaneous circumstances affecting crop commodity markets collectively provoked a dramatic spike in food prices globally, the brunt of which was borne by countries dependent on those commodities as primary food sources. Although analyses differ about the contribution of biofuels to the price increase, the use of prime farmland to produce biofuel feedstocks has subsequently been scrutinized critically in light of mounting global food security concerns (Oladosu and Msangi, 2013)
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This is done by characterizing the boundaries, components, processes, actors, and linkages involved in evaluating the intended and unintended effects of current biofuels policies relative to an alternative policy configuration. The alternative chosen for comparison may involve additional or different actors and linkages than are associated with the Renewable Fuel Standard.
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Like those policies, an anticipated effect of eliminating fossil fuel subsidies would be to reduce fossil fuel consumption, thus reducing fossil fuel dependence. The strong linkage between energy costs and food production will result in feedbacks to each sector that also must be estimated in the analy
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BIOFUELS POLICY 309 sis. Just as biofuels subsidies have had an influence on what crops farmers decide to grow, high fossil fuel prices could alter both crop planting and agronomic practice decisions by agricultural producers.
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. In its first triennial report on biofuels policy to Congress in 2011, EPA found that negative effects resulting from the policy were mainly due to the environmental impacts of corn production.
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Estimates of the impact of biofuels production on food prices globally are affected by the time frame examined. Over the long term, corn prices are shaped by production costs as well as demand
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biofuels policy, affecting all industrial sectors, including food production. Socioeconomic consequences are likely to be distributed unevenly, given differences in the types of subsidies in place worldwide.
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Energy security was a specific rationale for developing the Renewable Fuel Standard. The elimination of U.S.
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An analysis of how different policy configurations perturb the nexus between the global food and energy systems would be a complex and broad undertaking. Nevertheless, assembling and synthesizing the existing literature would provide a good initial picture of the distinctions between the two policies that could be sufficient to make broad comparisons of their potential and actual effects on the dimensions of interest and provide perspective on how they might operate in combination with other policies (e.g., supporting research into alternative energy production)
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maize ethanol on global land use and greenhouse gas emissions: Estimating market-mediated responses. BioScience 60(3)
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2011. Renewable fuel standard: Potential economic and environmental effects of U.S.
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2013. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)
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