Guiding Principles of the Agro-Fuels Campaign

By Derec Davies

The agro-fuels campaign is guided by principles which provide the reasoning behind its objectives, strategies and tactics. Whilst not set in stone it is not expected that these principles will change greatly as the campaign progresses though a semi-regular review process will be valuable.

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1. Agro-fuel production and use competes with food markets impacting on food security and contributing to rising food prices.
2. Agrofuel production competes for land with other system types such as primary forest with negative impacts upon biodiversity (and other ecosystem functions). Therefore increasing the area of land under human cultivation.
3. Agrofuel production may negatively impact upon water availability for food production and other ecosystem function with long term impacts on our river systems and ocean environments.
4. Agrofuel production often occurs in monoculture plantations, rather than mixed species farming systems which may be more sustainable.
5. Second generation agrofuel production retains many of the existing issues associated with first generation fuels whilst raising additional problems such as risk potential and increased land use abilities.
6. International agrofuel demand is driving deforestation in Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Africa through plantation expansion and resulting land use changes.
7. The substitution of fossil fuel derived liquid fuels with plant or animal based fuels encourages the maintenance of a highly consumptive society based upon a notion of progress and growth.
8. Research and Development of agrofuel feedstock and processing technologies may use genetic modification of organisms and synthetic biology, without the application of the precautionary principle to safeguard human and ecosystem health.
9. Agrofuel plantations have potential to impact upon Indigenous communities through competition for land rights, provision of economic opportunities, and participation (or otherwise) in natural resource management.
10. Agrofuel production and use may expand to mitigate peak oil impacts which would otherwise require a radical restructuring of society.
11. Greenhouse gas emission assessments of agrofuel consumption often fail to consider the full lifecycle emissions of their production, therefore resulting in an underestimation of the GHG potency of the agrofuels.
12. Agrofuels promoted on their GHG emission credentials often fail to consider other ecosystem services provided by the previous land use and hence lead to an underestimation of the social and economic impacts of their production and use.
13. Agrofuel use is often wrongly considered to be renewable. This is misleading as agrofuel production requires significant inputs such as fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides which are derived from fossil fuels and/or toxic.
14. Transportation fuelled by agrofuels using existing technologies is not able to be scaled-up to meet existing liquid fuel demand due to the inability of the planet with finite resources to create enough biomass to produce the required amount of energy.
15. Promotion of ‘waste’ products as renewable biofuel feedstocks is incorrect as future demand for liquid fuels will outweigh supply and thereby lead to increased revenue for highly unsustainable agricultural and forestry processes. eg. The use of bagasse in sugar cane growing areas of north Queensland.
16. Governmental financial support for agrofuels maintains societal dependence upon wasteful transport methods and therefore removes available resources from more sustainable transport alternatives such as public transport whilst entrenching the behavioural status quo.
17. Northern Australia is particularly vulnerable to agrofuel plantation expansion due to relatively few land use alternatives, low population density, and existing governmental work to scope its potential.
18. Agrofuel production and use maintains the strangle hold of global corporations on transport, energy and agricultural sectors and relies upon centralised energy production. Second generation agrofuels are likely to be particularly centralised due to technological requirements.