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Benefits from Small Scale Bioenergy Initiatives
A new report from the Foreign Agricultural Organisation of the UN shows that local and productive energy end uses can help to enhance the livelihoods of those in developing countries by boosting their natural, financial, human, social and physical resources in a sustainable way.
The report looks at case studies in India, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Tanzania and focussed on developing and improved understanding of the link between peoples' livelihoods and small scale energy initiatives.
* "There is no discernible link between the initiatives and food production, prices or security." |
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FAO Small-Scale Bioenergy Initiatives Report.
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The report concludes that alternative natural resources can be harvested and used more efficiently at sustainable levels replacing fossil fuels. As far as biofuels are concerned, intercropping and use of marginal land for hardy crops and trees appears to create new natural and financial capital with cycles of growth and use of by-products as fertiliser contributing to new growth and soil fertility.
It shows that small-scale bioenergy initiatives are incorporating technologies, knowledge and practices offering high levels of natural resource efficiency.
The benefits that come from the use of the improved energy within the local communities are key in delivering livelihoods benefits through improved energy services in households, communal spaces, public buildings, services and enterprises, the FAO report says.
Benefits to the Community
It describes the benefits that are derived from small scale initiatives as "virtuous circles" where the energy is obtained for the community, without money flowing out for fossil fuels.
Fossil fuel prices had been a driving factor for most developing countries, but the use of the new renewable energy initiatives had changed the focus of the people and the authorities.
"For example a removal of subsidy on kerosene in Ethiopia drove an increase in unimproved fuel wood use in the country," the report says.
"This dominance is not a new situation and in many countries significant biofuels developments have taken place over the last 30 years or so since the first oil crisis. In general these have fallen by the wayside as fossil fuel prices dropped, with the notable exception being Brazil which persevered in bioethanol development with government support."
The report adds: "In some of the Small Scale projects covered in this study, a primarily economic argument is made for Bioenergy production based on the high fossil energy price. In all, however, evidence is presented about wider benefits of local production and consumption of a resource derived from the sun, earth and water."
The FAO, who wrote the studies together with the PISCES Energy Research Consortium, says that the role of governments and authorities in supporting, facilitating and enabling the planning and regulation of these schemes is of paramount importance.
Where, in the past governments have been controlled by the prices of fossil fuels in their decisions, the report shows that they can have a significant bearing on the communities by opting for the bioenergy solution.
While there is a need for stability in areas such as pricing, there is also a need for flexibility and diversity to reduce the risk.
Collaborative Efforts
The FAO also shows that collaboration between two types of organisations driving the projects from the start, such as Public/private sector operators, NGO/Private or University/Co-op helps to give them initial stability.
The FAO adds: "It is notable in cases where initiatives develop market chains with greater numbers of processes, linkages and by-products, each responding to a demand then they are increasing the resource efficiency of the whole system, and at the same time spreading livelihoods benefits more widely within rural communities."
The report found that there was no real clash between growing the crops for fuels and crops for food.
"In all Bioresources and Bioresidues cases there is no discernible link between the initiatives and food production, prices or security. If a linkage is detectable it is to reduce the costs of cooking by providing lower cost cooking fuels and time-saving to households or increased revenues to restaurants through reuse of oil wastes," it says.
Food v Fuel
In all the jatropha cases a non-food crop was being used to produce the biofuel and all initiatives were promoting one or all of a series of measures to decouple this activity from food production.
In the cases of ethanol production from sugarcane in the Ethiopia Stoves and Brazil Microdistilleries cases, the initiatives put an emphasis on the use of molasses, the waste residues from sugar processing as a main feedstock for ethanol production.
The report concludes that in all the cases a significant point is made about the potential of Small-Scale Bioenergy initiatives to bring additional opportunities to rural areas, and to reinforce the viability of communities and reduce pressures towards forced urbanisation of the community members to find work.
"Creating viable choices for these individuals to stay in rural areas through a combination of improved revenue opportunities and living conditions within villages is an important contributor to rural development and the cases examined in this study offer optimism that appropriately implemented Small-Scale Bioenergy Initiatives can contribute to this outcome," the study says.
Further Reading
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- | You can view the full report by clicking here. |
March 2009
