Investigators
Rosamond L. Naylor - Stanford University
Walter P. Falcon - Stanford University
Kenneth Cassman - Stanford University
Scott Rozelle - Stanford University
Jikun Huang - Director at Center on Chinese Agricultural Policy
Mark Rosegrant - International Food Policy Research Institute

Biofuels are a hot topic in both the academic literature and the popular press, but much of the current debate over biofuels is devoted to narrow issues of energy conversion to the exclusion of understanding the broader implications surrounding their rapid development. This project embraces these larger questions, examining the role of biofuels development on global and regional land use change, on food markets, and on global food security. Specific questions include: what will happen to international commodity prices for the main biofuel crops and their substitutes in the market? How will price changes affect the ability of poor households to pay for staple food supplies? Could the production of biofuels in developing countries like Indonesia and China spur rural development and enhance income growth, thereby leading to a reduction in poverty and hunger in these regions? Will the rapid expansion of biofuels in the US come at the expense of past conservation gains?

The Gates Foundation is funding a major portion of the biofuels work at FSE. The Gates-funded project, entitled "Biofuels and Food Security in the Developing World: Pathways of Impacts and Assessments of Investments", is a collaboration between FSE, the International Food Policy Research Institute, the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, and the University of Nebraska. The Gates work seeks to describe the pathways of impact between expanding biofuels production and its effects on global commodity markets, poverty, and food security, and to assess the feasibility of investing in biofuels systems in poor countries, shedding light on when and where such investments might help or hinder efforts at poverty alleviation. The project will entail both a global modeling effort, and associated detailed case studies in India, Mozambique, and Senegal.

Related work underway at FSE directly addresses the effects of biofuels development on land use change and climate, in particular countries and globally.

Funding provided by
• Gates Foundation