state dependence and heterogeneity in fishing location choice to explore the distinction between state dependence and heterogeneity in repeated decisions this paper combines a mixed logit model with a state dependence parameterization from the marketing literature to study fishing location choices of commercial sea urchin divers in california it examines implications of ignoring either effect and finds in all cases that true state dependence is an important determinant of location choice consequently spatial policies like marine reserves can lead to differences in the short and long run behavioral responses of the fishing fleet under some specifications random preference parameters are statistically significant when state dependence is excluded from the model but when it is included random preference parameters are not significant in other specifications including state dependence only dampens the variability in preference parameters these results highlight the importance of gathering and analyzing diary type data for commercial fisheries as well as for similar choice problems in recreation demand

international trade in biofuels an introduction to the special issue abstract currently many countries are establishing goals for substituting biofuels for fossil fuels these goals usually foresee 5 10 substitution while today s production in most countries is far below 2 evidently many countries will seek to meet their ambitious biofuel targets through imports this global trade in biofuels which is to some extent already taking place will have a major impact not only on other commodity markets like vegetable oils or animal fodder but also on the global land use change and on environmental impacts this special issue focuses on the relation between trading policy making and sustainability impacts of biofuels it demonstrates the strong but complex link between biofuels production and the global food market it unveils policy measures as the main drivers for production and use of biofuels and it analyzes various sustainability indicators and certification schemes for biofuels with respect to minimizing the adverse effects of biofuels while maximizing the benefits of the future use of biofuels

towards a sustainable electrification in ghana a review of renewable energy deployment policies abstract ghana has been facing perennial power rationing over the years due to fuel supply challenges the country s energy system is likely to suffer additional strain from rising energy demand fueled by population growth rapid urbanization and economic development fortunately there are enormous renewable energy resources which can provide sustainable electrification as backbone to socioeconomic development while curbing global warming ghana s energy strategy targets 100 access to electricity and 10 share of sustainable power in national generation mix by 2020 despite the existence of numerous policies and a renewable energy act current contribution of non conventional renewable energy to electricity generation is less than 1 the right mix of policies to address the unique domestic conditions and achieve its specific development goals remains insufficient this study reviews the regulatory framework financing incentives and other provisions of ghana s renewable energy act it critically examines the policy s strengths weaknesses opportunities and treats based on comparative analysis and lessons drawn from failed and successful implementation of similar policies around the world the study also assesses the impact of policy on project development it was found that the performance of ghana s renewable energy policy on grid connected electricity has been poor compared to its target the fundamental reasons for this unsatisfactory performance may be attributed to partial implementation of policies lack of market driven support schemes lack of pricing policy framework weak grid network limited access to funds and inconsistencies in renewable energy development strategies this study proposes the following countermeasures i ghana should comprehensively harmonize renewable energy regulatory and fiscal policies with domestic electricity pricing regime ii market driven support schemes should be prioritized for cost effectiveness and minimum governmental influence these reforms can help eliminate some of the major barriers to sustainable electrification in ghana while the lessons provide a learning curve for other african countries

food security strategies under extremely adverse conditions the determinants of household income and consumption in rural mozambique abstract this paper uses household survey data from war torn northern mozambique to examine the factors associated with higher incomes and improved rural household food security incomes and calorie consumption were found to be low and variable in each district and both are highly correlated with land holdings the central role of land holdings is largely a result of serious market failure food market participation rates and the proportion of net buyers are lower than in other sub saharan africa ssa research purchased food as a percentage of total caloric intake and off farm income as a percentage of total income are both very low by ssa standards in short surveyed smallholders have adopted a strategy of marked reliance on farm based own production to ensure their survival it is suggested that land holdings will continue to be key determinants of household income and consumption for the foreseeable future broad based rural development efforts possibly organized around existing cotton growing enterprises may offer one way out of the poverty trap for smallholders

biofuels and food security micro evidence from ethiopia abstract there is considerable controversy about the impact of biofuels on food security in developing countries a major concern is that biofuels reduce food security by increasing food prices in this paper we use survey evidence to assess the impact of castor production on poor and food insecure rural households in ethiopia about 1 3 of poor farmers have allocated on average 15 of their land to the production of castor beans under contract in biofuel supply chains castor production significantly improves their food security they have fewer months without food and the amount of food they consume increases castor cultivation is beneficial for participating households food security in several ways by generating cash income from castor contracts they can store food for the lean season castor beans preserve well on the field which allows sales when farmers are in need of cash or food spillover effects of castor contracts increases the productivity of food crops increased food crop productivity offsets the amount of land used for castor so that the total local food supply is not affected

promoting high input maize technologies in africa the sasakawa global 2000 experience in ethiopia and mozambique abstract critics argue that high external input technologies heit are too costly for african farmers and that programs to promote them are economically unsustainable this paper assesses sasakawa global 2000 programs in ethiopia and mozambique using financial and economic analysis yield models and subsector analysis the sg 2000 technology was much more profitable in ethiopia than in mozambique but varied depending on production location fertilizer and transport costs domestic and international prices regional surplus or deficit conditions and production as import substitute or export the case studies provide further evidence that high input technologies can be successfully introduced through well funded high profile programs but not conclusive evidence that such programs can be scaled up and sustained five major implications are discussed concerning 1 prospects for scaling up and sustaining heit adoption 2 the need for expanded profitability analysis 3 the role of trade prospects and policies 4 institution building requirements and 5 infrastructure investments to reduce marketing costs

the effect of price and income changes on food energy intake in sri lanka data is used to analyze the food acquisition behavior of households from a 1980 81 survey designed to be nationally sectorally and regionally representative of sri lanka the poor are shown to be much more responsive to price and income changes than other income groups the urban population generally exhibits lower income elasticities of demand for food commodities the poor appear to efficient substitutors thereby mitigating the effects of a price change on caloric intake the important exception is rice whose elasticity of calorie consumption with respect to price was about 4 times higher than for any other commodity the reluctance of households to substitute for rice even when faced with rising prices coupled with its large budget share show rice to be the most important consumption good higher rice prices are an important determinant of poverty for landless and urban workers moderating food prices preferably through technological change is a key ingredient to raising consumption among the poor simulations show that even if there are rapid and proportional increases in expenditures of all income groups this will not dramatically increase caloric intake among the poor however if the absolute value of the increase in real expenditures were distributed equally to all households there would be a marked increase in the of households consuming an adequate diet

the rise of large farms in land abundant countries do they have a future increased levels and volatility of food prices has led to a surge of interest in large scale agriculture and land acquisition this creates challenges for policy makers aiming to establish a policy environment conducive to an agrarian structure to contribute to broad based development in the long term based on a historical review of episodes of growth of large farms and their impact this paper identifies factors underlying the dominance of owner operated farm structures and ways in which these may change with development the amount of land that could potentially be available for expansion and the level of productivity in exploiting available land resources are used to establish a country level typology the authors highlight that an assessment of the advantages of large operations together with information on endowments can provide input into strategy formulation at the country level a review of recent cases of land acquisition reinforces the importance of the policy framework in determining outcomes it suggests that transparency and contract enforcement recognition of local land rights and ways in which they can be exercised attention to employment effects and technical viability and mechanisms to re allocate land from unsuccessful ventures to more productive entrepreneurs are key areas warranting the attention of policy makers

using choice experiments to value the environment this paper we outline the choice experiment approach to environmental valuation this approach has its roots in lancaster s characteristics theory of value in random utility theory and in experimental design we show how marginal values for the attributes of environmental assets such as forests and rivers can be estimated from pair wise choices as well as the value of the environmental asset as a whole these choice pairs are designed so as to allow efficient statistical estimation of the underlying utility function and to minimise required sample size choice experiments have important advantages over other environmental valuation methods such as contingent valuation and travel cost type models although many design issues remain unresolved applications to environmental issues have so far been relatively limited we illustrate the use of choice experiments with reference to a recent uk study on public preferences for alternative forest landscapes this study allows us to perform a convergent validity test on the choice experiment estimates of willingness to pay

why has economic growth been more pro poor in some states of india than others abstract we use 20 household surveys for india s 15 major states spanning 1960 1994 to study how the sectoral composition of economic growth and initial conditions interact to influence how much growth reduced consumption poverty the elasticities of measured poverty to farm yields and development spending did not differ significantly across states but the elasticities of poverty to urban and rural non farm output varied appreciably and the differences were quantitatively important to the overall rate of poverty reduction states with higher elasticities did not experience higher rates of non farm growth the non farm growth process was more pro poor in states with initially higher literacy higher farm productivity higher rural living standards relative to urban areas lower landlessness and lower infant mortality

lessons from first generation biofuels and implications for the sustainability appraisal of second generation biofuels the emergence of second generation 2g biofuels is widely seen as a sustainable response to the increasing controversy surrounding the first generation 1g yet sustainability credentials of 2g biofuels are also being questioned drawing on work in science and technology studies we argue that controversies help focus attention on key often value related questions that need to be posed to address broader societal concerns this paper examines lessons drawn from the 1g controversy to assess implications for the sustainability appraisal of 2g biofuels we present an overview of key 1g sustainability challenges assess their relevance for 2g and highlight the challenges for policy in managing the transition we address limitations of existing sustainability assessments by exploring where challenges might emerge across the whole system of bioenergy and the wider context of the social system in which bioenergy research and policy are done key lessons arising from 1g are potentially relevant to the sustainability appraisal of 2g biofuels depending on the particular circumstances or conditions under which 2g is introduced we conclude that sustainability challenges commonly categorised as either economic environmental or social are in reality more complexly interconnected so that an artificial separation of these categories is problematic

when and how should infant industries be protected abstract this paper develops and analyzes a welfare maximizing model of infant industry protection the domestic infant industry is competitive and experiences dynamic learning effects that are external to firms the competitive foreign industry is mature and produces a good that is an imperfect substitute for the domestic good a government planner can protect the infant industry using domestic production subsidies tariffs or quotas in order to maximize domestic welfare over time as protection is not always optimal although the domestic industry experiences a learning externality the paper shows how the decision to protect the industry should depend on the industry s learning potential the shape of the learning curve and the degree of substitutability between domestic and foreign goods assuming some reasonable restrictions on the flexibility over time of the policy instruments the paper subsequently compares the effectiveness of the different instruments given such restrictions the paper shows that quotas induce higher welfare levels than tariffs in some cases the dominance of the quota is so pronounced that it compensates for any amount of government revenue loss related to the administration of the quota including the case of a voluntary export restraint where no revenue is collected in similar cases the quota may even be preferred to a domestic production subsidy

developing a sustainability framework for the assessment of bioenergy systems the potential for biomass to contribute to energy supply in a low carbon economy is well recognised however for the sector to contribute fully to sustainable development in the uk specific exploitation routes must meet the three sets of criteria usually recognised as representing the tests for sustainability economic viability in the market and fiscal framework within which the supply chain operates environmental performance including but not limited to low carbon dioxide emissions over the complete fuel cycle and social acceptability with the benefits of using biomass recognised as outweighing any negative social impacts this paper describes an approach to developing a methodology to establish a sustainability framework for the assessment of bioenergy systems to provide practical advice for policy makers planners and the bioenergy industry and thus to support policy development and bioenergy deployment at different scales the approach uses multi criteria decision analysis mcda and decision conferencing to explore how such a process is able to integrate and reconcile the interests and concerns of diverse stakeholder groups

biofuel production and its impact on food security in low and middle income countries implications for the post 2015 sustainable development goals abstract the post 2015 sustainable development goals sdgs aim to strengthen the achievements of the millennium development goals mdgs there are 17 sdgs the first two tackle ending poverty and hunger as well as food insecurity under nutrition and sustainable agriculture to address these goals requires eradicating chronic hunger this paper examines challenges associated with biofuel production and how they relate to sdgs and their targets we mainly focus on challenges associated with biofuel production not adequately addressed in the sdgs it draws from a range of peer reviewed and grey literature to advance the understanding of how biofuel production will impact the post 2015 development agenda the findings suggest that increasing use of food crops to produce biofuels in the united states european union japan and brazil has been one important element in explaining the steady rise in staple food prices since 2000 while this is a potential threat to food and nutrition security in low and middle income countries biofuel production also offers significant opportunities in low income countries there are several challenges to the development and harnessing of biofuels these include 1 the interaction between biofuel production and climate change 2 biofuel production and foreignisation of land 3 food wastage 4 poor governance and limited production capacity 5 biofuel production within a weak and fragmented policy framework 6 biofuel production land tenure and socio economic impacts 7 biofuel production and conflicts and 8 biofuel production and deforestation for the post 2015 sustainable development agenda to have an impact strong actions are required to protect rural communities as well as nurture the biofuels industry this should be matched by commensurate investments in food and nutrition security and transparent public private partnerships this calls for strong and pro poor policies on feedstock farming processing and trading such policies must address the rhetoric of stakeholder participation in land use management

the impacts of biofuel targets on land use change and food supply a global cge assessment this study analyzes the long term impacts of large scale expansion of biofuels on land use change food supply and prices and the overall economy in various countries or regions using a global computable general equilibrium model augmented by a land use module and detailed representation of biofuel sectors the study finds that an expansion of global biofuel production to meet currently articulated or even higher national targets in various countries for biofuel use would reduce gross domestic product at the global level however the gross domestic product impacts are mixed across countries or regions the expansion of biofuels would cause significant land re allocation with notable decreases in forest and pasture lands in a few countries the results also suggest that the expansion of biofuels would cause a reduction in food supply although the magnitude of the impact on food supply at the global level is not as large as perceived earlier it would be significant in developing countries like india and those in sub saharan africa agricultural commodities such as sugar corn and oil seeds which serve as the main biofuel feedstocks would experience significant increases in their prices in 2020 compared with the prices at baseline due to the expansion of biofuels to meet the existing targets

integrated assessment of sustainability trade offs and pathways for global bioenergy production framing a novel hybrid approach abstract current controversies and debates on bioenergy production in the areas of greenhouse gases emission reduction food and energy security social exclusion and welfare erosion and ecosystem deterioration attest to the challenges which the bioenergy sector has to overcome to achieve its global production potentials because it is yet an evolving sector the sustainability of bioenergy production in different regions is very elusive experiences show that bioenergy policies in one region can have impacts not only on its own but also on other regions social economic and ecological sustainability it is thus important to assess development pathways for bioenergy to exploit the potential benefits and forestall any unnecessary costs this paper frames a novel hybrid approach for assessing bioenergy potentials for regions with diverging economic social and ecological systems the approach is based on a conceptual framework that takes into account trade offs decisions on sustainability goals and production options in the assessment of bioenergy pathways it combines different empirical techniques for the systematic investigation of trade offs and pathways including fuzzy logic conjoint logit and path analyses to show the relevance and utility of these techniques for the integrated assessment of trade offs and pathways in bioenergy development we illustrated their application using results and data from previous related studies

contemporary processes of large scale land acquisition in sub saharan africa legal deficiency or elite capture of the rule of law summary growth of emerging economies policy commitments to biofuels and volatility in commodity prices have contributed to a marked increase in the pace and scale of foreign direct investment in land based enterprises in the global south this paper explores the relationship between policy and practice associated with customary rights protections in the context of large scale land acquisitions through a document review and case study analyses from ghana mozambique tanzania and zambia findings point to the difficulty of safeguarding customary rights even in countries providing best practice legal protections and point to the fundamental role of human agency in shaping outcomes

international investment location decisions abstract in international location tournaments governments compete for foreign investment with tax and other short run incentives such tournaments can be won if agglomeration economies are sufficiently powerful to overcome investors desire to spread investments as a hedge against risk we focus on manufacturing investments by u s multinationals in the 1980s our econometric results suggest that agglomeration economies are indeed the dominant influence on investor calculations paradoxically short run incentives have limited apparent impact on location choice we conclude that high cost tournament play is unnecessary for countries with good infrastructure development specialized input suppliers and an expanding domestic market

a review of social sustainability considerations among eu approved voluntary schemes for biofuels with implications for rural livelihoods the rapid expansion of biofuel production and consumption has raised concerns over the social and environmental sustainability of biofuel feedstock production processing and trade the european union eu has thus balanced its commitment to biofuels as one option for meeting its renewable energy targets with sustainability criteria for economic operators supplying biofuels to member states seven voluntary eu sustainability schemes were approved in july 2011 as a means to verify compliance while mandated sustainability criteria have a strong environmental focus a number of these voluntary schemes have social sustainability as a significant component of the requirements put forward for achieving certification as several of these voluntary schemes are incipient thereby limiting evidence on their effectiveness in practice this analysis is based on a comparative analysis of the substantive content or scope of these schemes and the likely procedural effectiveness of the same findings show that while some schemes have considerable coverage of social sustainability concerns poor coverage of some critical issues the presence of schemes lacking any social sustainability requirements and gaps in procedural rules are likely to undermine the likelihood that social sustainability is achieved through these schemes or the eu sustainability policies lending credibility to them

rethinking the global food crisis the role of trade shocks although fundamental factors were clearly responsible for shifting the world to a higher food price equilibrium in the years leading up the 2008 food crisis there is little doubt that when food prices peaked in june of 2008 they soared well above the new equilibrium price numerous arguments have been proposed to explain overshooting including financial speculation depreciation of the united states us dollar low interest rates and reductions in grain stocks however observations that international rice prices surged in response to export restrictions by india and vietnam suggested that trade related factors could be an important basis for overshooting especially given the very tangible link between export volumes and export prices in this paper we revisit the trade story by closely examining monthly data from thailand the largest exporter of rice and the united states the largest exporter of wheat and maize and the third largest exporter of soybeans in all cases except soybeans we find that large surges in export volumes preceded the price surges the presence of these large demand surges together with back of the envelope estimates of their price impacts suggests that trade events played a much larger and more pervasive role than previously thought

biofuel investment in tanzania omissions in implementation abstract increasing demand for biofuels as a component of climate change mitigation energy security and a fossil fuel alternative attracts investors to developing countries like tanzania ample unused land is critical for first generation biofuels production and an important feature to attract foreign direct investments that can contribute towards agricultural modernization and poverty reduction initiatives despite the economic justifications the existing institutional and infrastructural capacities dictate the impacts of biofuels market penetrations furthermore exogenous factors like global recessionary pressure depressed oil prices below the level at which biofuel production were profitable in 2007 making tanzania s competitiveness and potential benefits questionable this paper investigates the extent that first generation jatropha based biofuels industry development in tanzania observed during fieldwork in kisarawe and bahi may fulfill policy objectives this paper argues that without strong regulatory frameworks for land investment management and rural development biofuel industrialization could further exacerbate poverty and food insecurity in tanzania the paper concludes with policy recommendations for first generation biofuel development while keeping in mind implications of second generation production since the topic is broad and multifaceted a multidisciplinary approach is used that includes political institutional and agricultural economics to analyze and conceptualize biofuel industry development and food security

the enduring power of coase abstractby many measures ronald coase has been among the most influential economists of the past 60 years why is this so we suggest that coase s work has enduring appeal to and insight for social scientists in part because it addresses the biggest and most important social problems how do we solve governance and coordination problems when limited information common resource issues and public good issues produce conflicts among several people at once any scholar who works on issues of corporate or common pool governance pollution allocation of seats on legislative committees regulation of systemic risk in financial markets provision of military forces patent thickets creation of optimal communications networks regulation of decreasing cost industries or compensation of corporate officers can see his or her work stemming from several of coase s original insights just as john nash s work reshaped economic theory almost every field of economics and political science is shaped by coasean insights

translating legal rights into tenure security lessons from the new commercial pressures on land in ghana abstractsince the confluence of the food and oil price crises of the mid 2000s ghana has become a prime destination for large scale farmland investments while this trend could make valuable contributions to an ailing agricultural sector the alienation of rural land for commercial ends could conversely have far reaching implications for customary land rights through an analysis of the legislation protecting customary land rights and governing such the alienation of those rights and by contrasting this with practice this article highlights some of the fundamental challenges in translating legal rights into tenure security in contemporary ghana it shows that despite the legal recognition of customary land rights in practice customary land users are ultimately responsible for contesting infringements upon these rights with traditional authorities able to capture substantial rents from the alienation process and government institutions offering scant oversight as a result of fragmented responsibilities

on measuring energy poverty in indian households summary the relationship between energy and poverty is obvious and goes both ways recognizing this this paper provides a short overview of different approaches to measuring energy poverty it then presents a novel two dimensional measure of energy poverty and energy distribution that combines the elements of access to different energy types and quantity of energy consumed an assessment of the extent of energy poverty and changes in energy distribution pattern are analyzed by applying this measure to indian household survey data for 1983 2000 the analysis shows a significant reduction in the level of energy poverty and a rapidly developing subcontinent the new measure is a good complement to conventional monetary measures and is general enough to be applied to other developing countries

a review of the ecological and socioeconomic effects of biofuel and energy policy recommendations abstract many countries have attached great emphasis on biofuel because it is universally acknowledged renewable and sustainable however there remain doubts regarding biofuel s renewability cleanliness and ecological friendliness in addition its impacts on income employment and food security have been widely discussed therefore the effect of developing biofuel as an important method of resolving the energy crisis and climate change is questioned based on the rocketing concern on the multiple effects of biofuel this paper provides a comprehensive and updated review of the literature on biofuel s ecological effects and socioeconomic effects the literature included in this paper is selected english language papers being published since 2004 we find that existing studies have not arrived at a consensus regarding the ecological or the socioeconomic effects of biofuel there remain uncertainty and doubts toward biofuel s renewability and cleanliness biofuel s impacts on water and biodiversity are also questioned although biofuel is widely regarded to have positive impacts on income and employment many studies prove that biofuel influences food security negatively besides biofuel s economic cost is likely to be the barrier to its promotion because of the uncertainty of biofuel s impacts this study recommends cautious attitude toward biofuel development especially for those countries where biofuel development would be inappropriate and suggests that policy makers engage in demand side management instead of unsustainable supply side management

considering the energy water and food nexus towards an integrated modelling approach the areas of energy water and food policy have numerous interwoven concerns ranging from ensuring access to services to environmental impacts to price volatility these issues manifest in very di

location choice in new england trawl fisheries old habits die hard in his seminal work on common property resources h scott gordon proposed that in a fishery with multiple grounds effort would be distributed such that profit rates would be equal among them gordon s model relies on implicit assumptions that are inaccurate and lead to false conclusions in many cases in this paper we present an empirically estimated model of fishery and location choice for large trawlers in new england using a random utility framework with a nested logit model specification we use the model to test the validity of a behavioral model developed from ethnographic interviews with skippers

limited entry licensing insights from a duration model limited entry is used to manage many fisheries effectiveness depends on a program s ability to control aggregate fishing power which fleet size and composition both affect this article analyzes fleet composition and attrition in a limited entry fishery the california red sea urchin fishery it explores the dynamics of heterogeneity in catch and revenue and applies duration analysis to study individual fisherman attrition using both individual level and time varying covariates the results show that the fleet is becoming more homogenous but also more potent and spatially mobile regulations such as size limits and season restrictions tend to increase attrition

facilitating the financing of bioenergy projects in sub saharan africa abstract the purpose of this paper is to identify and develop potential solutions on how to facilitate the financing of bioenergy projects in sub saharan africa we focus on four main areas that have been identified from empirical research in achieving this objective these are i financing ii markets iii trade and iv policy the sources utilised consist of primary and secondary data compilation and analysis of particular relevance are the results of a market survey undertaken on funding opportunities where the perspectives of both project developers as well as project financiers are taken into account results indicate that the four areas cannot be treated autonomously as they not only overlap but impact each other there are a number of difficulties for biofuel ventures not least the nature of the projects themselves but also around the financing and political landscape of these enterprises common solutions which cross cut the four areas are the need to raise awareness and the skillsets in areas including financing opportunities markets policy technical aspects among a range of stakeholders involved in biofuel ventures there is also a necessity to create a supporting framework for the emerging carbon trading related activities in africa

biofuels in sub sahara africa drivers impacts and priority policy areas there has been a growing interest in jatropha and sugarcane based biofuels across sub sahara africa biofuel expansion in the region reflects policy concerns related to energy security poverty alleviation and economic development however biofuels have also been linked to numerous environmental and socioeconomic impacts such as ghg emissions water availability pollution deforestation biodiversity loss poverty alleviation energy security loss of access to land and food security to name just a few yet there is a an insufficient understanding of these impacts and their synergies in sub sahara africa and b a lack of policies that could regulate the biofuel sector and ensure its viability while at the same time preventing its negative impact the aim of this literature review is to synthesize the current knowledge about biofuel impacts in africa and to identify priority policy areas that should be targeted for enhancing biofuel sustainability in the continent the findings of this review indicate that biofuel impacts can be positive or negative depending on several factors such as the feedstock the environmental socio economic context of biofuel production and the policy instruments in place during biofuel production use and trade in most cases there are significant trade offs but at least part of the negative impacts can be mitigated through careful planning the incomplete and piecemeal understanding of these trade offs combined with agronomic institutional and market failures are currently the most important barriers for the viability and sustainability of biofuel investments in the continent

developments in international solid biofuel trade an analysis of volumes policies and market factors abstract this paper presents and analyses international solid biofuel trade and concludes upon interactions with bioenergy policies and market factors it shows that trade has grown from about 56 to 300 pj between 2000 and 2010 wood pellets grew strongest i e from 8 5 to 120 pj other relevant streams by 2010 included wood waste 77 pj fuelwood 76 pj wood chips 17 pj residues 9 pj and roundwood 2 4 pj intra eu trade covered two thirds of global trade by 2010 underlying markets are highly heterogeneous generally though trade evolved whenever supply side market factors coincided with existing emerging demand patterns market factors and policies both defined trade volumes though policy changes did not have as prominent effects on trade developments as in the liquid biofuel sector economic viability is the key limiting factor main exporting countries have low feedstock costs and already existing wood processing industries trade relevant aspects are the commodity s monetary value determined by its homogeneity heating value and bulk density consumer markets are diverse in residential heating demand trade patterns have been influenced by local biofuel availability and short term price signals i e mainly price competitiveness and investment support for boilers stoves commodities are mainly sourced regionally but price differences have triggered a growing trade the industrial segment is greatly influenced by policy frameworks but more mature e g established routes trade is strictly linked to margins defined mainly by policies and combustion technologies uncertainties in the analysis are due to data gaps across and within databases regarding import export declarations to estimate bioenergy related trade anecdotal data was indispensable we believe datasets should be streamlined across international institutions to eventually enable reporting of global trade beyond digit 6 level research is needed to provide further insights into informal markets interrelations between trade factors are particularly relevant when mapping future trade streams under different policy trade regime scenarios

addressing the renewable energy financing gap in africa to promote universal energy access integrated renewable energy financing in malawi abstract the sustainable energy for all initiative is a global initiative launched by the united nations secretary general in 2012 with a goal of providing universal access to modern energy services by 2030 to achieve this goal substantial financial and technological investments will be required at a rate far exceeding historical levels sub saharan africa has a 30 5 electrification rate and policy reform issues to improve electrification have been poorly implemented thereby sprinkling doubt as to whether the region would be able to achieve 100 access to electricity for all by the year 2030 sub saharan africa faces a tough challenge in order to achieve universal access to modern energy services since the region fails to attract energy sector investments there is also a general perception that the region contributes very little to global greenhouse gas emissions hence offers few opportunities to reduce these emissions consequently missing out on attracting climate finance projects a guarantee of power purchase has been shown to attract energy sector investments however guarantees of power purchases such as feed in tariffs are experiencing slow market growth in developing countries because of a range of technical regulatory and financial barriers using malawi as a case study of a developing country this review provides a perspective from a sub saharan africa least developed country as to the various electrification renewable energy deployment and climate change management challenges that still require urgent attention this study shows that despite the perceived regulatory and financial challenges malawi can integrate and use a combination of adapted price guarantee schemes cross subsidies and environmental taxes in order to support initiatives aimed at supporting the country s development of renewable energy sources and hence indirectly support the sustainable energy for all initiative

vessel entry exit behavior in the gulf of mexico shrimp fishery given the heterogeneous nature of the fishing fleet and complex vessel behavior traditional marginalist supply models are not well suited for modeling vessel mobility a discrete choice model is utilized here to predict the probability that a vessel will enter exit or remain in the gulf of mexico shrimp fishery based on a myopic profit maximization criterion the multinomial logit model indicates that fisherman behavior is not influenced by stock variability the crowding externality as represented by size of fishing fleet exhibits a strong negative impact on the probability of entry independent of changes in abundance exvessel prices or harvest costs the gulf of mexico shrimp fishery was not an autonomous system of fishing vessels as initially believed

prospects for jatropha biofuels in tanzania an analysis with strategic niche management the paper reports on research in tanzania about the scope for developing biofuels from an oil seed bearing plant called jatropha curcas linnaeus the plant is widely seen to have potential to help combat the greenhouse effect help to stop local soil erosion create additional income for the rural poor and provide a major source of energy both locally and internationally the principal analytic tool is strategic niche management snm an approach rooted in evolutionary innovation theory we analyse how the scope for an energy transition is influenced by factors at three societal levels the overarching landscape the sectoral setting or regime and the niche level where the innovation develops and diffuses valuable niche processes were found in a few areas especially in cultivation but we conclude that there are still many obstacles in tanzania s prevailing energy regime the development of jatropha biofuels is still in an early phase we list policy recommendations and discuss some methodological issues arising from the use of snm

multi actor governance of sustainable biofuels in developing countries the case of mozambique this paper describes and analyses the multi actor governance process that made mozambique the first african nation state to develop a national policy framework for sustainable biofuels the paper draws on findings from action research conducted in mozambique between december 2008 and july 2012 we analyse interactions between the changing governance context the course of the multi actor governance process and the choices in relation to governance framework characteristics and content for four successive stages of governance framework development this provides the basis for reflection on the competences required for effective multi actor sustainability governance and a discussion about the role of the nation state in sustainability governance of global economies such as biofuels the governance framework for sustainable biofuels has contributed to a more transparent and secure investment climate for biofuels in mozambique key factors for success were 1 the presence of different types of competences during the various stages of the governance framework development 2 closing the gap between licences to sell and licences to produce across different governance levels and 3 balancing between the short and long term objectives for biofuel production in mozambique and requirements of global biofuel markets developing country nation states can provide an essential contribution to these success factors for global governance of sustainable biofuels

sustainable and integrated bioenergy assessment for latin america caribbean and africa sibyl lacaf the path from feasibility to acceptability abstract uncertainties in evaluating bioenergy projects have lead policymakers to adopt a restrictive approach or even refuse to evaluate projects when the available information is limited or a clear perception of its benefits and impact is lacking indeed despite its potential advantages a bioenergy system poses several conceptual and operational challenges for academic as well as practical scrutiny because the inherent relationship and the intersection of areas related to energy production and agricultural activity requires a deeply integrated assessment the aim of this paper is to review the available works in this field and propose an approach for supporting policymakers in the taking decision process of deploying sustainable bioenergy systems the sibyl lacaf framework provides a comprehensive framework for addressing the inherent complexity of the subject and its sustainability and acceptability as part of the evaluation process with this approach different and complementary evaluation methods are reviewed and set in a logical and sequential structure to draw a group of indicators used for assessing a given project with the help of a strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats swot matrix when acceptability is identified as an issue a public consultation and communication pc c scheme can complement this process the suggested application for mozambique indicate that an acceptable outcome is possible even when considering the data requirements and constraints of developing countries thus the potential of this integrated approach outweighs such limitations

bio energy policies in a global context abstract against the background of an increasing global demand for bio energy the need for sustainability standards and a certification system ensuring sustainable production and trade has grown rapidly nevertheless there is currently no specific forum for discussions on how to deal with biomass trade at the multilateral level distortions in agricultural and energy trade regimes the myriad of standards and the lack of a clear biomass classification in the multilateral trade regime suggest that bio energy products may not deliver sustainable development gains for all trading partners this paper analyses then the global impact of bio energy policies on biomass production and trade paying particular attention to sustainable development in the bio energy sector it examines how a possible reduction and elimination of trade barriers as well as a phasing out of trade distorting support measures would contribute to the development of a global sustainable bio energy market

space for innovation for sustainable community based biofuel production and use lessons learned for policy from nhambita community mozambique abstract this paper provides insights and recommendations for policy on the opportunities and constrains that influence the space for innovation for sustainable community based biofuel production and use promoted by the mozambican government nhambita community established jatropha trials in 2005 initial results were promising but crop failure and the absence of organized markets led to scepticism amongst farmers we start from the idea that the promotion of community based biofuel production and use requires taking interactions between social cultural biophysical economic political and legal subsystems across different scales and levels of analysis through time into account our analysis demonstrates that heterogeneous farming strategies and their synergies at community level should be carefully assessed furthermore national and international political and legal developments such as the development of biofuel sustainability criteria influence the local space in which community based biofuel developments take place we conclude that ex ante integrated assessment and creating an enabling environment can enhance space for sustainable community based biofuel production and use it may provide insights into the opportunities and constraints for different types of smallholders and promote the development of adequate policy mechanisms to prevent biofuels from becoming a threat rather than an opportunity for smallholders

a test of policy labels in environmental choice modelling studies abstract a question that arises in the application of environmental choice modelling cm studies is whether to present the choice sets in a generic or labelled form the former involves labelling the policy options to be presented to respondents in a generic way for example as option a option b etc the labelled approach assigns alternative specific descriptors to each option these may relate to the names of proposed policies different locations or any other policy relevant details both approaches have their advantages a potential advantage of using alternative specific labels is that respondents may be better able to base their choices on the true policy context this can increase predictive validity whilst at the same time reducing the cognitive burden of the cm exercise a potential advantage of the generic labelling approach is that respondents may be less inclined to base their choices wholly or largely on the labels and as a consequence may provide better information regarding trade offs among attributes the two approaches to choice set design are compared in the context of a cm study of the values of remnant vegetation in the desert uplands of central queensland results indicate a difference in the cognitive processes generated by choice models using the different approaches this difference is reflected in both the alternative specific constants and the taste parameters and cannot be accounted for by differences in error variance across the two treatments the implications for environmental valuation are discussed

modeling global market entry decision by fuzzy logic with an application to country risk assessment abstract this research introduces a fuzzy logic framework to support global market entry decision we present a fuzzy evaluation method to handle recursive problematical issues arising from the imprecision conveyed by natural language such as inaccurate measures ambiguous facts subjective analyses and imperfect decision rules that characterize the market entry decision making process the components of the method are described and are applied specifically to assess the level of country risk a principal category of market evaluation a case situation is developed to illustrate how the method analyzes and integrates political and social risks foreign exchange rate and trade balance

how does government ownership affect firm performance a simple model of privatization in transition economies abstract we present a game theoretical model of privatization in transition economies we consider the costs and benefits of government ownership and derive the net effect of government ownership on firm performance model predictions are consistent with empirical evidence in the literature

is there a role for biofuels in promoting energy self sufficiency and security a cge analysis of biofuel policy in thailand given the rising price of crude oil some developing countries including thailand are looking towards developing their domestic renewable energy resources in particular biofuels however there are concerns about the possible adverse effects such a policy strategy would have on key variables such as sectoral output land allocation and the effects of prices particularly food prices this study develops a computable general equilibrium cge model of the thailand economy that features enhancements of the energy sector and uses it to analyze the government s recent renewable energy development plan this plan aims to increase domestic energy use from renewable sources to replace fossil fuel imports the study simulated specific policies contained in the plan among other things we found that promoting biofuel use causes a rapid increase in the price of biofuel and biofuel feedstock in the short run whereas these prices only increase slightly in the long run due to more elastic supplies the prices of food and other products marginally increase implying that food security is not undermined by the policy on the basis of the findings the study recommends a review of some of the targets because they were found to be rather high and a phasing in of others

brazilian biofuels and social exclusion established and concentrated ethanol versus emerging and dispersed biodiesel increasing interest in biofuels trade between developed and developing countries has spurred worldwide discussions on issues such as subsidies and the food for fuel crisis one issue missing in recent discourse is the pressure exerted on developing countries to adopt large scale mechanized farming practices to increase economic efficiencies such approaches often exclude small scale farmers from participating in the emerging biofuels market thus exacerbating poverty and social exclusion drawing on both qualitative and technical data we discuss such pressures using brazilian ethanol and biodiesel production pressure from international markets to become more economically efficient may contribute towards the erosion of recent schemes to encourage social benefits for small farmers in biodiesel production we conclude with trade and policy implications

future bioenergy trade in the eu modelling trading options from a cost effectiveness perspective the purpose of this paper is to analyse under what conditions with respect to co2 emission reduction and biofuels for transport targets the trading in the eu of co2 credits and solid and or liquid biofuels is cost effective from the perspective of an optimisation energy systems model we use the peep model covering the eu27 except bulgaria malta and cyprus to generate insights about the cost effectiveness of different options under different policy scenarios trade in co2 credits is a cost effective option in all relevant policy scenarios trade in some biofuels mainly from central and eastern european countries to the eu15 is cost effective in all assessed scenarios in the case of co2 targets whether national or at the eu level there is trade in solid biofuels when biofuels for transport targets are also implemented trading both solid and liquid biofuels is cost effective

ghana s bioenergy policy is 20 biofuel integration achievable by 2030 abstract in dealing with the climate change externality of the fossil fuel dominated transport sector bio fuels are widely seen as a solution through its bioenergy policy ghana seeks to improve oil supply security save foreign exchange create jobs and reduce emissions from the transport sector by integrating 20 biofuels into the transport fuel mix by 2030 this paper systematically analyses the transport fuel demand in ghana to determine the biofuel supply target in 2020 and 2030 and evaluates the resource input requirements for integration of biofuels into the transport fuel mix it provides a detailed picture of bio fuel prospects in ghana in the 2030 horizon the research concludes that though significant yield improvement is required to meet the target the target is achievable

external governance and the eu policy for sustainable biofuels the case of mozambique growing demand for transport biofuels in the eu is driving an expansion of the industry in developing countries large scale production of energy crops for biofuel if mismanaged could cause detrimental environmental and social impacts the aim of this study is to examine whether the newly adopted eu directive 2009 28 ec and its sustainability certification system can effectively ensure sustainable production of biofuels outside the eu mozambique a least developed country with biofuels ambitions is selected as empirical case the effectiveness of the eu policy in analysed employing ideal models of external governance hierarchical market and network governance as analytical framework the findings show that the eu attempts to impose its rules and values on sustainable biofuels using its leverage through trade the market approach adopted by the eu is expected to produce only unstable subject to abrupt changes of market prices and demand and thin limited to climate and biodiversity issues policy results stronger emphasis on a network oriented approach based on substantial involvement of foreign actors and on international policy legitimacy is suggested as a way forward

biofuels and the poor global impact pathways of biofuels on agricultural markets this study seeks to assess the future impacts of biofuel production on regional agricultural and related sectors over the next decade with a specific focus on the vulnerable regions of developing nations using a modification of the gtap modeling platform to account for the global interactions of regional biofuel and food markets the analysis shows that biofuel production levels depend on the assumption about the future price of energy and the nature of the substitutability between biofuels and petroleum based transport fuels low energy prices reduce the demand for biofuels and thus require greater government support to meet the desired production targets at the other extreme when prices are high and there is scope for substituting biofuels for petroleum based fuels the volume of biofuels produced will exceed the mandates even when biofuels are being mainly produced in developed countries our results indicate that there are impact pathways that extend far beyond the borders of the us brazil and the eu prices of feedstock and non feedstock commodities rise in developing countries there is also a rise in value added from the agricultural sector a gain that is enjoyed by the owners of land and labor including unskilled hence to the extent that agriculture is a key sector in getting growth started and addressing poverty needs the emergence of biofuels can in this way at least be a positive force

biofuel development in ghana policies of expansion and drivers of failure in the jatropha sector abstract biofuel development was mainly promoted in several parts of africa as an energy security or rural development strategy jatropha was the biofuel feedstock that received the most interest across africa from investors however jatropha expansion gave rise to a number of contested issues which produced conflicts winners and losers access to land was at the heart of several of these conflicts though some success stories of individual jatropha projects have been documented the overwhelming majority of these projects in africa have either collapsed or faced significant difficulties understanding the reasons behind the failure of the jatropha sector is an important gap in the academic literature while the lessons learnt from failed projects could inform future policies and practices this literature review synthesizes the key drivers of failure of the jatropha sector in ghana as identified in the literature and complemented through site visits and expert interviews it identifies a number of reasons behind the failure of individual jatropha projects such as poor business planning institutional barriers limited community participation unfair compensation practices obstacles posed by civil society and unconstructive involvement of chiefs the findings indicate the systemic nature of these problems as they often worked synergistically to catalyse the collapse of many jatropha projects in ghana re vitalising the biofuel and especially the jatropha industry is virtually impossible given the current challenges this would require a renewed political interest in ghana particularly to deal with the deficits of the land administration institutions

energy security for india biofuels energy efficiency and food productivity abstract the emergence of biofuel as a renewable energy source offers opportunities for significant climate change mitigation and greater energy independence to many countries at the same time biofuel represents the possibility of substitution between energy and food for developing countries like india which imports over 75 of its crude oil fossil fuels pose two risks global warming pollution and long term risk that oil prices will undermine real living standards this paper examines india s options for managing energy price risk in three ways biofuel development energy efficiency promotion and food productivity improvements our salient results suggest that biodiesel shows promise as a transport fuel substitute that can be produced in ways that fully utilize marginal agricultural resources and hence promote rural livelihoods first generation bioethanol by contrast appears to have a limited ability to offset the impacts of oil price hikes combining the biodiesel expansion policy with energy efficiency improvements and food productivity increases proved to be a more effective strategy to enhance both energy and food security help mitigate climate change and cushion the economy against oil price shocks

food versus fuel what do prices tell us abstract sorting out the impacts of biofuels on global agricultural commodity prices is impossible without turning to data and distinguishing between the short run versus the long run impacts using time series prices on fuels and agricultural commodities the aim is to investigate the long run cointegration of these prices simultaneously with their multivariate short run interactions results indicate no direct long run price relations between fuel and agricultural commodity prices and limited if any direct short run relationships in terms of short run price movements sugar prices are influencing all the other agricultural commodity prices except rice with sugar the number one world input for ethanol results indicate increased ethanol production is potentially influencing short run agricultural commodity prices overall results support the effect of agricultural commodity prices as market signals which restore commodity markets to their equilibria after a demand or supply event shock

does food aid really have disincentive effects new evidence from sub saharan africa summary limited empirical evidence exists either to refute or confirm the pervasive belief that food aid has significant disincentive effects on recipient food production using household level data from rural ethiopia we demonstrate that while simple descriptive statistics appear consistent with the disincentive effects hypothesis once one controls properly for the endogeneity of food aid receipt no empirical support remains for the hypothesis that food aid creates disincentive effects among recipient households the macro economic evidence yields similar findings applying vector autoregression methods to national level data controlling for possible confounding variables we find that food aid has no disincentive effect on food production

dea based predictors for estimating fleet size changes when modelling the introduction of rights based management the introduction of individual transferable quotas itqs into a fishery is going to change not only the amount of catch a fleet can take but often also changes the fleet structure particularly if total allowable catches are decreased this can have an impact on the economic social and environmental outcomes of fisheries management management strategy evaluation mse modelling approaches are recognised as the most appropriate method for assessing impacts of management but these require information as to how fleets may change under different management systems in this study we test the applicability of data envelopment analysis dea based performance measures as predictors of how a fishing fleet might change under the introduction of itqs and also at different levels of quota in particular we test the assumption that technical efficiency and capacity utilisation are suitable predictors of which boats are likely to exit the fishery we also consider scale efficiency as an alternative predictor we apply the analysis to the torres strait tropical rock lobster fishery that is transitioning to an itq based management system for one sector of the fishery the results indicate that capacity utilisation technical efficiency and scale efficiency are reasonable indicators of who may remain in the fishery post itqs we find that the use of these measures to estimate the impacts of lower quota levels provides consistent fleet size estimates at the aggregate level but which individual vessels are predicted to exit is dependent on the measure used

the geographic and sectoral patterns of large scale farmland investments in sub saharan africa following the food and energy price crises of the mid 2000s sub saharan africa has become one of the largest recipients for large scale farmland investments while much has been written on the phenomenon scant reliable empirical evidence is available as to the precise geographic and sectoral patterns and underlying drivers employing strict data quality requirements this paper addresses these knowledge gaps by analyzing 563 farmland projects that have been established between 2005 and 2013 in sub saharan africa findings show that the investment intensity and associated risks are not geographically uniform moreover the study highlights a number of popular misconceptions regarding investor origin and their sectoral interests and motives

biofuels development in sub saharan africa are the policies conducive this paper analyses national regional and international biofuels policies and strategies to assess whether these policies promote or undermine the development of biofuels sector in africa despite having a huge comparative advantage in land labour and good climatic conditions favourable for the growing of energy crops few countries in sub saharan africa have included biofuels strategies in their energy or national development policies further results show that while developed countries commit huge financial resources for research technology development and the provision of tax incentives to both producers and consumers there is little government support for promoting biofuels in africa although the consequences of biofuels on food supply remain uncertain the mandatory blending of biofuels with fossil fuels by industrialized countries will create demand for land in africa for the growing of energy crops for biofuels this paper urgently calls upon national governments in sub saharan africa to develop appropriate strategies and regulatory frameworks to harness the potential economic opportunities from biofuels sector development while protecting the environment and rural communities from the adverse effects of land alienation from the mainstream agriculture towards the growing of energy crops for biofuels at the expense of traditional food crops

introducing mozleap an integrated long run scenario model of the emerging energy sector of mozambique since recently mozambique is actively developing its large reserves of coal natural gas and hydropower against this background we present the first integrated long run scenario model of the mozambican energy sector our model which we name mozleap is calibrated on the basis of recently developed local energy statistics demographic and urbanization trends as well as cross country based gdp elasticities for biomass consumption sector structure vehicle ownership and energy intensity we develop four scenarios to evaluate the impact of the anticipated surge in natural resources exploration on aggregate trends in energy supply and demand the energy infrastructure and economic growth in mozambique our analysis shows that until 2030 primary energy production is likely to increase at least six fold and probably much more this is roughly 10 times the expected increase in energy demand most of the increase in energy production is destined for export as a result mozambique may well become one of the leading global producers of natural gas and coal we discuss the opportunities and challenges that this resource wealth poses for the country

discrete modelling of supply response under uncertainty the case of the fishery abstract in the absence of complete control in a regulated industry effective management requires prediction of firms behavioral responses to public policy this paper develops a discrete choice model of supply response under uncertainty and applies it to fishery choice problems of new england fishing firms while fishermen demonstrate a bias towards remaining within the same fishery sufficient incentives in terms of changes in expected returns and risk are shown to elicit response due to extreme uncertainty concerning population dynamics of fish stocks a satisficing approach to management facilitated by this type of modelling may be more appropriate than bioeconomic optimization

land subsidence production efficiency and the decision of aquacultural firms in taiwan to discontinue production abstract for some time the over pumping of groundwater by aquacultural producers has contributed to severe problems with land subsidence in many areas of taiwan this has led to policy initiatives that impose extra costs on groundwater users by investigating the effects of the conditions of aquifers production efficiency and other factors on decisions of taiwanese aquacultural producers to exit the industry this paper lays an important foundation for an understanding of the effects of these policy initiatives using data from a nationwide survey this exit decision is examined using an innovative empirical strategy that combines data envelopment analysis with a discrete choice econometric model results indicate that less efficient firms and those located in areas where land subsidence is severe are more likely to exit these relationships may in part reflect the effectiveness of the recent policy changes to reduce land subsidence attributable to aquaculture production

chinese villages and townships as industrial corporations ownership governance and market discipline1 public firms in a reforming socialist economy face two problems the old soft budget constraint syndrome and new principal agent problems china s township village government owned enterprises tves outperform state owned enterprises soes in growth rate and productivity three explanations are proposed in the literature 1 tves represent informal or ambiguous private property rights which are most efficient in partial reform 2 the small size and scale of township village governments as industrial corporations allows officials to monitor tves directly and to limit their wherewithal for cross subsidizing 3 strict market disciplines facing tves render indirect market monitoring to mitigate agency problems effectively analyses of jiangyin data show that a while both superior to local soes village and township enterprises share similar productivity and b the scale of township village corporations slightly increases productivity i conclude that local state corporatism should be revised to inc

stochastic production and heterogeneous risk preferences commercial fishers gear choices we present a model of fishers gear choice which allows for heterogeneity both in production technology and risk preferences and apply it on a panel of swedish trawlers stochastic revenue functions are estimated and used to predict the mean and standard deviation of revenue for each trip in a random parameters logit model we test if these predicted values explain gear choice a majority of fishers respond positively to increased mean and negatively to increased variability of expected landing values indicating risk aversion but also show a strong tendency to choose the same gear used on the previous trip

biofuels in developing countries are comparative advantages enough this paper investigates the role of comparative advantage on biofuel policy adoption results show that different countries have different drivers to create biofuel policies gdp proves to be more significant for oecd countries while arable land and feedstock prices are more significant for non oecd countries land allocation may also be of importance we speculate that a naturally endowed comparative advantage may not necessarily equate to a successful biofuel industry

defining viable recovery paths toward sustainable fisheries this paper develops a formal analysis of the recovery process for a fishery from crisis situations to desired levels of sustainable exploitation using the theoretical framework of viable control we define sustainability as a combination of biological economic and social constraints which need to be met for a viable fishery to exist biological constraints are based on the definition of a minimum resource stock to be preserved economic constraints relate to the existence of a guaranteed profit per vessel social constraints refer to the maintenance of a minimum size of the fleet and to the maximum speed at which fleet adjustment can take place using fleet size adjustment and fishing effort per vessel as control variables we first identify the states of this bioeconomic system for which sustainable exploitation is possible i e for which all constraints can be dynamically met such favorable states are called viable states we then examine possible transition phases from non viable to viable states we characterize recovery paths with respect to the time of crisis of the trajectory which is the number of periods during which the constraints are not respected the approach is applied to the single stock of the bay of biscay nephrops fishery the transition path identified through the viability approach is compared to the historical recovery process and to both open access and optimal harvesting scenarios

social and techno economical analysis of biodiesel production in peru peru has introduced a law to promote the use of biofuels with the objective to increase employment strengthening agriculture development providing an economic alternative to illegal drug production in this work the costs of biodiesel production from oil palm and jatropha were analyzed under different scenarios they include the participation of associations of smallholders and commercial producers as raw material provides in biodiesel business in peru the scenarios considered have a strong social dimension in which they explicitly consider how productions 39 costs change when smallholders supply a proportion of the feedstock to the industry production cost profiles were generated using the chemical process simulation and economical evaluation software packages provided by aspen technology total production cost found for oil palm biodiesel production ranged between 0 23 and 0 31 usd l and jatropha biodiesel production costs were between 0 84 and 0 87 usd l these production costs were analyzed and compared to biodiesel ex factory prices and diesel fuel production cost factors the results suggest that including smallholders in the supply chain can be under some conditions competitive with liquid biofuel production systems that are purely large scale c 2012 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

rising food prices food price volatility and social unrest can food prices cause social unrest throughout history riots have frequently broken out ostensibly as a consequence of high food prices using monthly data at the international level this article studies the impact of food prices food price levels as well as food price volatility on social unrest because food prices and social unrest are jointly determined data on natural disasters are used to identify the causal relationship flowing from food price levels to social unrest results indicate that for the period 1990 2011 food price increases have led to increases in social unrest whereas food price volatility has not been associated with increases in social unrest these results are robust to alternative definitions of social unrest to using real or nominal prices to using commodity specific price indices instead of aggregated price indices to alternative definitions of the instrumental variable to alternative definitions of volatility and to controlling for non food related social unrest

biofuels adoption in nigeria attaining a balance in the food fuel feed and fibre objectives abstract the drive towards economic development in nigeria brings about the pursuit of many competing objectives whose attainments depend on limited resources biofuels adoption has been set as an important path among other options for pursuing economic growth and development for the country the federal government of nigeria fgn is currently promoting the production processing and utilization of biofuels in the transport and energy sectors the article examines biofuels adoption in nigeria vis a vis the attainment of a balance in the food fuel feed and fibre objectives crops already profiled as preferred sources of feedstock for the primary biofuels production are also crucial for food feed and fibre the resources needed for producing these crops are limited hence the need for a balance this paper derived data from secondary sources including the food and agriculture organization fao the paper explores some aspects of biofuels sustainability and present recommendations for attaining a balance in the multiple objectives for attaining socioeconomic development

quantifying public preferences for agri environmental policy in scotland a comparison of methods abstract this paper compares two methods for determining policy priorities for reform of scottish agricultural support multifunctional agriculture attempts to establish a new balance between traditional commodity support and payment for the production of non market goods and services that are increasingly demanded by the public supplying non market goods presents particular problems for optimal policy design not least the elicitation of consumer demand for those goods from public focus groups a range of attributes was derived as central to the scottish public s preferences for future agri environmental reform this information was then combined in two separate survey methods using the analytical hierarchy process ahp and choice experiments ce both applications suggest that the public has defined preferences and a willingness to pay using general income taxation to affect changes beyond the status quo and that policy payments should be targeted towards both environmental and social benefits the divergent preference orderings derived from the alternative methods can be considered in the light of previous methodological debates on question framing bounded rationality and respondent uncertainty we speculate about the validity of alternative methodologies for informing particular policy questions

spatial search and fishing location choice methodological challenges of empirical modeling recent work in ecology emphasized the spatial patchiness of marine resources fish and shellfish populations often occur in clumps or discrete patches of habitat with different population levels and dynamics in each patch patches are linked through a set of complex biological and oceanographic factors this new view has given rise to spatial marine management proposals including permanent marine reserves and rotating spatial closures reserve proposals are particularly popular among ecologists because closed areas can presumably augment the biomass in areas that were overharvested due to stochas

the impact of biofuels on commodity food prices assessment of findings for years agriculture has provided most of the fuel for vehicular transportation concerns about availability of fuels balance of trade and climate change led to the introduction of biofuel programs in the united states brazil europeanunion eu andothercountries the impacts of these programs and the relationship between the food and fuel markets have become major topics of economic research this paper summarizes the main findings of alternative lines of research on the relationship between the food and fuel markets and identifies gaps and quandaries that warrant further research this is not meant to be a complete survey and it emphasizes several of our studies within the broader literature the paper distinguishes between two bodies of literature one on the relationship between food and fuel prices and another on the impact of the introduction of biofuel on commodity food prices while biofuel prices do not seem to affect food commodity prices we explain why the introduction of biofuel does moreover biofuelshavenotbeenthemostdominant contributor to the recent food price inflation and different biofuels have different impacts

three bubbles and a panic an explanatory review of recent food commodity price events abstract this paper is a summary of the behaviour of food commodity prices in 2007 2008 and a review of the causes of the price increases extracted from a report to the chief scientific advisor to her majesty s government thirtle c piesse j 2008 an explanatory review of the world food commodity price events of 2007 2008 a report to the chief scientific advisor department for innovation universities and skills london the historical background shows that the price spike was much less severe than in the 1970s the conventional wisdom that prices of the main food commodities were falling prior to 2006 is questioned most ceased falling and were quite stable from the 1980s the paper separates the causes of the spike from the underlying changes driving the long run trends the literature on the causes of the spike is critically reviewed and summarised there is a reasonably broad consensus on most of the causes but much less on the impact of the depreciation of the us dollar there are also concluding speculations on the future

potential impacts of biofuel development on food security in botswana a contribution to energy policy abstract biofuel development continues to be a critical development strategy in africa because it promises to be an important part of the emerging bio economy however there is a growing concern that the pattern of biofuel development is not always consistent with the principles of sustainable development this paper assesses the potential of the impacts of biofuel development on food security in botswana drawing on informal and semi structured interviews the paper concludes that there is potential for the development of biofuels in botswana without adverse effects on food security due mainly to availability of idle land which accounted for 72 of agricultural land in the eastern part of the country in 2008 it is suggested that farmers could be incentivized to produce energy crops and more food from such land although it is hypothesized that the implementation of biofuel development programmes in other countries had an impact on local commodity prices during the period 2005 2008 in botswana it is argued that local biofuel production may not necessarily lead to a substantial increase in commodity food prices because land availability is not a major issue the paper makes policy recommendations for sustainable biofuel development in botswana

who benefits from energy policy incentives the case of jatropha adoption by smallholders in mexico understanding the distribution of policy incentives is important in evaluating the impact of promotion programmes this study investigates the allocation of economic subsidies to jatropha cultivation by using adoption models at both the community and household levels in chiapas at the community level we compared socioeconomic and environmental variables of the communities that adopted jatropha to non adopters at the household level 420 farm households were surveyed to analyse both the determinants of adoption and the extent of adoption i e hectares dedicated to jatropha the variables determining adoption were analysed at both levels using generalised linear models the extent of jatropha adoption was assessed using ordinary least squares multiple regression quantitative data was complemented with key stakeholder interviews and focus groups results show that subsidies tend to be allocated to larger better connected communities which have access to better services within adopter communities the subsidy is distributed among households that have more resources better risk coping strategies better access to information more experience with similar technologies and whose attitude towards risk is positive this study provides lessons that can be useful for the introduction of new energy crops to better reach the target group and ultimately achieve the aims of energy promotion strategies

biofuel developments in mozambique update and analysis of policy potential and reality abstract climate change rising oil prices and concerns about future energy supplies have contributed to a growing interest in using biomass for energy purposes several studies have highlighted the biophysical potential of biofuel production on the african continent and analysts see mozambique as one of the most promising african countries favorable growing conditions and the availability of land water and labor are mentioned as major drivers behind this potential moreover the potential of biofuel production to generate socio economic benefits is reflected in the government s policy objectives for the development of the sector such as reducing fuel import dependency and creating rural employment this article provides an overview of biofuel developments in mozambique and explores to what extent reality matches the suggested potential in the country we conclude that biofuel developments mainly take place in areas near good infrastructure processing and storage facilities where there is skilled labor available and access to services and goods moreover our analysis shows the need to timely harmonize current trends in biofuel developments with the government s policy objectives as the majority of existing and planned projects are not focusing on remote rural areas and in absence of domestic markets principally target external markets

governance of the emerging bio energy markets despite its promising prospects a growing global bio energy market may have sustainability risks as well governing this market with respect to installing safeguards to ensure sustainable biomass production might reduce these risks therefore proposals for governance systems for bio energy are discussed in this article the proposals are based on comparative case study research on the governance of comparable commodities by assessing the governance system of global coffee trade fair trade coffee the global and the eu sugar market and forest stewardship council fsc wood strong and weak points of governance systems for commodities are discerned fsc is selected as the best performing case study and serves as the proposal s basis fsc s weaknesses are minimized by among others using the lessons learned from the other case studies this results in a system consisting of two pillars a bio energy labelling organization blo and a united nations agreement on bio energy unab although consulted experts in the research process are critical about this system they do suggest several conditions a governance system for bio energy should meet in order to be effective such as a facilitative government professional monitoring and using progressive certification combined with price premiums these conditions have been taken into account in the final proposal

can the nigerian biofuel policy and incentives 2007 transform nigeria into a biofuel economy abstract nigeria s economy is largely dependent on petroleum yet the country is suffering from fuel supply shortages in response to the transportation fuel supply difficulties in nigeria the country released the nigerian biofuel policy and incentives in 2007 to create favorable investment climate for the entrance of nigeria into the biofuel sector the paper assessed the progress made thus far by nigeria 4 years after the nigerian biofuel was released in an attempt to answer the question whether the policy is adequate to transform nigeria into a biofuel economy the study found that little progress has been made which includes commencement of the construction of 20 bioethanol factories installation of biofuel handling facilities at two depots mosimi and atlas cove and selection of retail outlets for biofuel conventional fuel mix the site construction of the announced biofuel projects is now slow and other progress is marginal we therefore conclude that the nigerian biofuel policy is unlikely to transform nigeria into a biofuel economy unless the government revert and refocus on biofuel and include additional financial incentives such as grants and subsidy to complement the tax waivers income import duty vat loans and insurance cover contained in the policy

decentralised bioenergy systems a review of opportunities and threats decentralised bioenergy systems are receiving increasing attention due to the potential ability to support local development create local employment and contribute to climate change mitigation these issues along with other bioenergy sustainability issues are reviewed through eighteen international case studies with the objective of identifying opportunities and threats to decentralised bioenergy systems the case studies were selected based on feedstock type bioenergy type production capacity synergistic alliances ownership structure and physical locations this variation was used to provide a basis for evaluating opportunities and threats from different contexts commercial viability remains the primary concern for the sustainability of decentralised bioenergy systems there are however opportunities for compounding benefits through integrating small scale decentralised bioenergy systems with other production systems integrated production including closed loop models allow waste materials from one process to be used as inputs in other production processes and thereby increasing economic social and environmental outcomes synergistic opportunities along the bioenergy production chain which include feedstock production bioenergy marketing and distribution could also be exploited by communities and other investors to minimise decentralised production risk

a review of biofuel policies in the major biofuel producing countries of asean production targets policy drivers and impacts since the turn of this century development of biofuels have progressed rapidly in indonesia malaysia philippines and thailand the major biofuels producing countries in the asean association of south east asian nations the article analyses the biofuel polices underlying drivers and way forward for sustained biofuel development in these countries favorable regulatory and economic mechanisms have played an important role in the production utilization and market penetration of biofuels in these countries a large variety of biofuel support policies are in place ranging from policy targets blending mandates tax incentives and other financial schemes to stimulate the development and adoption of biofuels indonesia is leading the region in biodiesel production and thailand is leading in ethanol production though each of these countries have had occasional setbacks in their production in totality there has been positive growth in biofuel production and an upward trend in future is likely with increased demand consumption enforcement of mandates and realization of policy targets the biofuel development of these countries is motivated by several factors mainly their concerns for energy security e g to reduce the dependence of oil imports and socio economic development e g to increase income generating opportunities climate change is not the primary motive of these countries to pursue biofuel development however sustainable production of biofuels and reliance on second generation biofuels can provide opportunities for these countries to translate their growth potential into economic revenues under carbon finance and thus address greenhouse gas emissions and climate change concerns

the jatropha biofuels sector in tanzania 2005 9 evolution towards sustainability abstract biofuel production has recently attracted much attention some anticipate substantial social and environmental benefits while at the same time expecting sound profitability for investors others are doubtful envisaging large trade offs between the pursuit of social environmental and economic objectives particularly in poor countries in the tropics the paper explores these issues in tanzania which has been an african forerunner in the cultivation of a bio oil shrub called jatropha curcas l we trace how isolated jatropha biofuel experiments developed since early 2005 towards a sectoral production and innovation system and we investigate to what extent that system has been capable of developing and maintaining sustainable practices and producing sustainable outcomes the application of evolutionary innovation theory allows us to view the developments in the sector as a result of evolutionary variation and selection on the one hand and revolutionary contestation between different coalitions of stakeholders on the other both these processes constitute significant engines of change while variation and selection are driven predominantly by localised technical and agronomic learning the conflict driven dynamics are highly globalised and occur primarily as a result of reflexive learning about problematic sustainability impacts the sector is found to have moved some way towards a full sectoral innovation and production system but it is impossible to predict whether a viable sector with a strong triple bottom line orientation will ultimate emerge since many issues surrounding the social environmental and financial sustainability still remain unresolved especially relating to local and global governance

do no harm risk perceptions in national bioenergy policies and actual mitigation performance this paper investigates how risks are anticipated in national bioenergy policies and in which way related expectations that harms can be prevented or mitigated have actually been met the paper draws on the national biofuel policies of ten countries and the eu selected to represent a diverse sample of regions producers and consumers and pioneers and latecomers it proceeds in two steps firstly it identifies three risk categories most frequently mentioned across the investigated national policies secondly it conducts a systematic review of available empirical research about biofuels effects in these risk categories findings are discussed regarding the empirical conditions under which related expectations to do no harm have materialized or failed and concerning the challenges of risks perception and management in actual policies we observe issues of crop selection and inadequate sectoral governance of biofuels but also challenges of large scale modes of intensive production effective risk mitigation was often the result of risk adverse choices by contract farmers engaged in biofuels production national policy documents have insufficiently conceptualized do no harm concepts and strategies in place to address these performance issues while remaining silent on the particular risk governance and accountability framework that keeps track of actual developments commitments and responsibilities