Seedling - July 2007

In this special agrofuels issue...

GRAIN | 28 July 2007 | Seedling - July 2007

We are devoting almost all of this edition to a single topic – the rapid expansion of biofuels across much of the globe. Read the editorial.

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Stop the agrofuel craze!

GRAIN | 26 July 2007 | Seedling - July 2007

An introductory article that, among other things, looks at the mind-boggling numbers that are being bandied around: the Indian government is talking of planting 14 million hectares of land with jatropha; the Inter-American Development Bank says that Brazil has 120 million hectares that could be cultivated with agrofuel crops; and an agrofuel lobby is speaking of 379 million hectares being available in 15 African countries.

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Corporate power: Agrofuels and the expansion of agribusiness

GRAIN | 24 July 2007 | Seedling - July 2007

Corporate interest in agrofuels has gone from a casual trot to a full-on stampede over the last few years. For business and politicians alike, agrofuels are certainly one of the more palatable “renewable” forms of energy because they fit easily into the existing petroleum-based economy. But they also present opportunities for profit that the new order of “green” business has wasted no time in capturing. Big money is now flowing into agrofuel projects across the world – with big consequences.

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Corporate power: The palm-oilbiodiesel nexus

GRAIN | 22 July 2007 | Seedling - July 2007

Palm oil is big business for the production of biodiesel.

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Corporate power: Alternative energy crops and next-generation agrofuels

GRAIN | 20 July 2007 | Seedling - July 2007

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Corporate power: The sugar-cane ethanol nexus

GRAIN | 18 July 2007 | Seedling - July 2007

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Agrofuels in Asia: Fuelling poverty, conflict, deforestation

Almuth Ernsting | 14 July 2007 | Seedling - July 2007

In no other region in the world is the absurdity of the frenzied rush into agrofuels more blatant than in Asia, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia. Far from helping to reduce global warming, it is leading to a big increase in global carbon emissions. Just as serious, it is cementing the control over large areas of land of industrial groups that are amongst the most ruthless in the world in terms of environmental destruction, labour conditions and human rights abuses.

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Snapshot of the agrofuel situation in some Asian countries

GRAIN | 12 July 2007 | Seedling - July 2007

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Jatropha the agrofuel of the poor?

GRAIN | 10 July 2007 | Seedling - July 2007

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The new scramble for Africa

GRAIN | 08 July 2007 | Seedling - July 2007

Africa, with its large land area and cheap labour, is an obvious target for agrofuel developers. As one European agrofuel lobby group likes to point out, just 15 African countries have a combined arable land base larger than India available for agrofuel crop production. And already millions of hectares of the continent’s so-called “fallow” lands have been surveyed and allocated for agrofuels.

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