Bioenergy and food security

As over 1 billion people in the world still suffer from hunger and the development of biofuels continues, there are many opportunities and risks affecting the capacity of men and women to have physical, social and economic access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs. There is growing international consensus that the increased demand of food crop feedstocks for the development of liquid biofuels for transport has contributed to recent commodity price hikes putting a further strain on food security. Rising food prices are good news for farmers selling the commodity, however, only a small minority of poor rural households, including farming households, have surplus to sell so therefore rising prices are an immediate threat to food security. If in the medium term a continued growth in biofuel demand will help reverse the trend of falling commodity prices experienced over the last few decades, this could help revitalize the agricultural sector. New demand can bring about new income opportunities for poor farmers and provide incentives for intensification, leading to increased food production and improved livelihoods, as long as production methods are sustainable. The work programme is focused in two areas. First, there is a focus on developing a solid analytical framework on bioenergy-food security links as a policy decision tool (bEFS) that is based on work at the international level and in three developing countries (i.e., Peru, Thailand and United Republic of Tanzania). Second, the focus lies in developing a set of internationally agreed upon good practices, policy measures to promote them, and criteria and indicators to monitor impacts as regards to bioenergy-food security linkages—bioenergy and Food security Criteria and Indicators (bEFCI).