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Towards a Sustainable Bioeconomy: What Does This all Mean for Canada?
By the Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development. This document is part of the Capturing Feed Grain & Forage Opportunities 2007 Proceedings - "Farming for Feed, Forage and Fuel".
Federal and provincial subsidies and incentives for biofuels have been critical in encouraging the growth of this new industry. Presumably, policy intervention in this area has been designed to address one or more key drivers such as rural economic development (new markets for agricultural production), climate change mitigation (reductions in greenhouse gas emissions) and energy security (concerns about fossil energy prices, North American access to middle east oil and peak oil and gas).
It is important to note that the relative importance of each of these drivers has changed dramatically in recent years, and they are likely to change even more in the next few years. In this presentation, I will consider how some of the recent trends, especially in the energy security and climate change fields, might impact agriculture, including impacts on the emerging and future biofuel market, other bioenergy markets and on the possible role for agriculture in providing environmental services.
