Discussion Topic 6: Integrated Food and Biofuels Production and Cross-Cutting Issues

1. INTEGRATING FOOD & BIOFUELS
PRODUCTION:
SHAPPING NEW AGRICULTURE FOR
BIOENERGY
Luís Cortez – UNICAMP, Brazil
Workshop on Biofuels and Food Security Interactions
Washington DC, Nov. 20th, 2014

2. DIAGNOSIS-I
 Sustainability for bioenergy is just too strict for
present technology in agriculture
 Present technologies used in agriculture activities
were developed more than 100 years ago and
considering food production in temperate climates
 Technologies used in bioenergy crops are
adaptations from food sector, not taylored for
bioenergy...
 If we want to make bioenergy sustainable we need
to invent new sustainable technologies for
bioenergy crops

3. DIAGNOSIS-II
 Traditional bioenergy is not sustainable and not likely to be
sustainable
 We should move from TB to Modern bioenergy
 But even present MB was not designed to fulfill needed
sustainability criteria
 Too many researchers working “on the problem” and few
working “to solve them”

4. FROM THE SUSTAINABILITY THAT WE
HAVE TO THE SUSTAINABILITY THAT WE
SHOULD HAVE....
 Yes, we think we know:
 Which are the right indicators
 What are their present values
 That we don´t like their values ??
 But, do we have the idea of what we really want?
 Do we really know what are the correct indicators (local
and global)?
 Do we really know what and how much they should be?
 Do we have targets??

5. CASE: SUGARCANE HARVESTING
MECHANIZATION IN BRAZIL
 Took place from 1999 to today (90% of Central
South Brazil)
 3 operations in cane harvesting: cutting, loading
and transport respond for 40 to 50% of total cane
costs at the mill
 It cost too much, too narrow, too heavy and
compact too much the soil, decreasing yields....
 Sugarcane harvesting process remained
unchanged since 1950 trhoughout the world

6. MINIMUM IMPACT SUGARCANE AGRICULTURE
BY CTBE, BRAZIL
From Oscar Braunbeck, CTBE

7. BUILDING SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE FOR
BIOENERGY
 Energy Cane: focus on energy not in sugar
 Fertility: built fertility and introduce precision
agriculture
 New soil conservation: no-till planting, straw
blancketing, 80% less compaction
 Low agrochemicals: transgenic varieties, biological
control
 New machinery: low cost, low weight, low losses,
high capacity
 Landscape: water conservation, biodiversity
conservation (corridors)

8. CONCLUSION
 Bioenergy economic and environment learning
curves can and should walk together!