Spanish company Ferry Group is to invest €42/US$55.2 million in a project for the production of biomass fuel pellets in Bulgaria.
The 3-year project consists of establishing plantations of paulownia trees near the city of Tran. Paulownia is a fast-growing tree used for the commercial production of fuel pellets.
Soybean farmers preparing for the biofuels scenario - doubts over sustainability
Quicknote bioenergy sustainability
A worker moves soya beans in the hold of a ship bound for Amsterdam at the port of Santos near Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Big soybean farmers meeting in Paraguay have agreed to create an institution charged with minimizing the environmental and social costs associated with large-scale production of the crop. Soybeans are known to be one of the world's most destructive crops, responsible for the deforestation of vast swathes of rainforest. Recently, consumer pressure in Europe even resulted in the continent's main food chains banning soy that was produced on illegally logged land. The rise of the global biofuels industry, however, complicates the debate, because the 'green' fuels offer a huge new market (soybean oil is a preferred feedstock for biodiesel). This is why the second "Global Roundtable on Responsible Soybean" development has given itself 18 months to decide on "criteria and indicators" that will govern development of soybean farming and minimize the crop's negative environmental and social impacts, including the possibility of an "environmental friendly" soybean certification.
The two day meeting in Asuncion, Paraguay’s capital, took place with the backstage of international soaring energy prices, the alleged depletion of existing hydrocarbons resources and global enthusiasm on the launching of the biofuels option.
The forum brought together farmers from several producer countries in South America - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay - and from India, as well as members of environmental groups such as Worldwide Fund for Nature. Alberto Yanosky, director of the environmental group Guyra Paraguay and coordinator of the event is quoted saying that during the talks participants analyzed the negative aspects of the expansion of soy farming into rainforest areas, the misuse of pesticides, the migration of indigenous communities to urban areas due to large-scale production and the new world scenario of biofuels.
"We know that in some places the (crop's) advance has been at the expense of the forests" said the expert, who supports the idea of certifying products made from soybeans that are grown in areas where environmental norms are respected. "These are clear initiatives to halt the expansion of the agricultural frontier. We think the current area is sufficient to achieve the estimated production levels for the next five or ten years" added Yanosky.
Behind closed doors the infringement on the Amazon region and possible limits to Mercosur soybean cropland or reduction of extensive livestock farming were discussed as well as agrochemicals, soil depletion, the deterioration of working conditions and promoting more organic production. The world's leader in soybean production is United States with 85 million tons per year, followed by Brazil, 56 million tons; Argentina, 40 million; China, 16 million; India, 6 million and Paraguay, 3.7 million tons. However no representatives from the United States or China were present at the gathering.
We will closely follow up on this meeting and the sustainability criteria the 'Roundtable' comes up with. It will be very difficult to design credible criteria because after all, this is a monoculture industry, which, if it wants to expand, automatically puts pressure on forests. Direct logging for soy may become a thing of the past, but we fear the indirect pressures, involving a complex mechanism of different agro-industrial sectors interacting without nobody knowing who's really to blame for the end result which remains the same, deforestation. It is well known, for example, that in Brazil forest is logged to make way for pastures for cattle, after which the soybean industry moves in, receives the attention, while the cattle firms have meanwhile moved elsewhere, stealthily.
The palm oil industry faces similar problems, for which it too has created a "Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil", involving all major stakeholders. The results from this roundtable might be an indicator of what will come out of the Soybean panel. It will show that the bare fundamentals cannot be changed: these tropical monocultures prey on the world's last remaining rainforests, and if they want to expand, the forest always loses out.
At the Biopact we therefor continuously stress that the only way to arrive at really sustainable tropical biofuels, is by using crops that explicitely thrive on lands far away from rainforests (such as cassava, jatropha, or sorghum). [Entry ends here].
ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: soybean :: deforestation
A worker moves soya beans in the hold of a ship bound for Amsterdam at the port of Santos near Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Big soybean farmers meeting in Paraguay have agreed to create an institution charged with minimizing the environmental and social costs associated with large-scale production of the crop. Soybeans are known to be one of the world's most destructive crops, responsible for the deforestation of vast swathes of rainforest. Recently, consumer pressure in Europe even resulted in the continent's main food chains banning soy that was produced on illegally logged land. The rise of the global biofuels industry, however, complicates the debate, because the 'green' fuels offer a huge new market (soybean oil is a preferred feedstock for biodiesel). This is why the second "Global Roundtable on Responsible Soybean" development has given itself 18 months to decide on "criteria and indicators" that will govern development of soybean farming and minimize the crop's negative environmental and social impacts, including the possibility of an "environmental friendly" soybean certification.
The two day meeting in Asuncion, Paraguay’s capital, took place with the backstage of international soaring energy prices, the alleged depletion of existing hydrocarbons resources and global enthusiasm on the launching of the biofuels option.
The forum brought together farmers from several producer countries in South America - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay - and from India, as well as members of environmental groups such as Worldwide Fund for Nature. Alberto Yanosky, director of the environmental group Guyra Paraguay and coordinator of the event is quoted saying that during the talks participants analyzed the negative aspects of the expansion of soy farming into rainforest areas, the misuse of pesticides, the migration of indigenous communities to urban areas due to large-scale production and the new world scenario of biofuels.
"We know that in some places the (crop's) advance has been at the expense of the forests" said the expert, who supports the idea of certifying products made from soybeans that are grown in areas where environmental norms are respected. "These are clear initiatives to halt the expansion of the agricultural frontier. We think the current area is sufficient to achieve the estimated production levels for the next five or ten years" added Yanosky.
Behind closed doors the infringement on the Amazon region and possible limits to Mercosur soybean cropland or reduction of extensive livestock farming were discussed as well as agrochemicals, soil depletion, the deterioration of working conditions and promoting more organic production. The world's leader in soybean production is United States with 85 million tons per year, followed by Brazil, 56 million tons; Argentina, 40 million; China, 16 million; India, 6 million and Paraguay, 3.7 million tons. However no representatives from the United States or China were present at the gathering.
We will closely follow up on this meeting and the sustainability criteria the 'Roundtable' comes up with. It will be very difficult to design credible criteria because after all, this is a monoculture industry, which, if it wants to expand, automatically puts pressure on forests. Direct logging for soy may become a thing of the past, but we fear the indirect pressures, involving a complex mechanism of different agro-industrial sectors interacting without nobody knowing who's really to blame for the end result which remains the same, deforestation. It is well known, for example, that in Brazil forest is logged to make way for pastures for cattle, after which the soybean industry moves in, receives the attention, while the cattle firms have meanwhile moved elsewhere, stealthily.
The palm oil industry faces similar problems, for which it too has created a "Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil", involving all major stakeholders. The results from this roundtable might be an indicator of what will come out of the Soybean panel. It will show that the bare fundamentals cannot be changed: these tropical monocultures prey on the world's last remaining rainforests, and if they want to expand, the forest always loses out.
At the Biopact we therefor continuously stress that the only way to arrive at really sustainable tropical biofuels, is by using crops that explicitely thrive on lands far away from rainforests (such as cassava, jatropha, or sorghum). [Entry ends here].
ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: soybean :: deforestation
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