All FSI Projects

Biofuels and Food Security in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa: Pathways of impacts and assessments of investments

IMG 13956 crop2
IMG 13956 crop1
photo: marshall burke

Researchers

Mark Rosegrant
Investigator
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Jikun Huang
Investigator
Center on Chinese Agricultural Policy
Walter P. Falcon
Investigator
Kenneth Cassman
Investigator
Scott Rozelle
Investigator
Siwa Msangi
Investigator
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Biofuel development contributes most effectively to rural income growth when you can have vertical integration. People all along the value chain have to be making money. The emerging connections between agriculture and energy markets are complex, but can be advantageous if handled carefully - Siwa Msangi

This project seeks to quantify how different scenarios of expanded biofuels production in rich and poor countries will affect global and regional food prices, farmer incomes, food consumption of the poor, and climate. The project involves both a global modeling effort, and linking this work with country modeling in three case-study countries (India, Mozambique, Senegal).  In combination, linking global and regional models will make a more detailed assessment of the opportunities and pitfalls associated with an array of possible biofuels development scenarios (e.g. using different crops for biofuels production, using marginal land vs highly productive land, etc). We suspect the work will represent the first systematic, detailed effort to address the effects of biofuels expansion on welfare in poor countries, and the first available analytic tool for assessing possible biofuels investments in individual developing countries. Project collaborators include the International Food Policy Research Institute, the Center on Chinese Agricultural Policy, and the University of Nebraska.

See project publication website for full list of publications.