IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ias/cpaper/08-bp53.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Breaking the Link between Food and Biofuels

Author

Listed:
  • Bruce A. Babcock

Abstract

Production of biofuels from feedstocks that are diverted from food production or that are grown on land that could grow crops has two important drawbacks: higher food prices and decreased reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. If U.S. policy were to change and place greater emphasis on food prices and greenhouse gas reductions, then we would transition away from current feedstocks toward those that do not reduce our ability to produce food. Examples of such feedstocks include crop residues, algae, municipal waste, jatropha grown on degraded land, and by-products of edible oil production. Policy options that would encourage use of these alternative feedstocks include placing a hard cap on ethanol and biodiesel production that comes from corn and refined vegetable oil, thereby forcing growth in biofuel production to come from alternative feedstocks; differentiation of tax credits and subsidies so that the alternative feedstocks receive a higher incentive than do corn and refined vegetable oil; and greatly increased funding for research to hasten the feasibility of producing and refining alternative feedstocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruce A. Babcock, 2008. "Breaking the Link between Food and Biofuels," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 08-bp53, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    • Handle: RePEc:ias:cpaper:08-bp53
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.card.iastate.edu/products/publications/pdf/08bp53.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.card.iastate.edu/products/publications/synopsis/?p=1083
    File Function: Online Synopsis
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rajcaniova, Miroslava & Drabik, Dusan & Ciaian, Pavel, 2011. "International Interlinkages of Biofuel Prices: The Role of Biofuel Policies," 2011 Annual Meeting, July 24-26, 2011, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 103222, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Bureau, Jean-Christophe & Treguer, David & Valin, Hugo, 2010. "Biofuel Programs And Farm Support: New Tools For Old Policies?," 14th ICABR Conference, June 16-18, 2010, Ravello, Italy 188081, International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research (ICABR).
    3. Assem A. A. Mohamed & M. G. El-Nagger & M. M. M. Abdelaziz & W. F. Abobatta, 0. "Economic Feasibility For The Production Of Jatropha On A Small Scale Irrigated By Treated Wastewater," Food & Agribusiness Management (FABM), Zibeline International Publishing, vol. 3(1), pages 20-24.
    4. Jensen, Kimberly L. & Clark, Christopher D. & English, Burton C. & Menard, R. Jamey & Skahan, Denise K. & Marra, Adrienne C., 2010. "Willingness to pay for E85 from corn, switchgrass, and wood residues," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1253-1262, November.
    5. Zaman Sajid & Maria Aparecida Batista da Silva & Syed Nasir Danial, 2021. "Historical Analysis of the Role of Governance Systems in the Sustainable Development of Biofuels in Brazil and the United States of America (USA)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-24, June.
    6. Nikos Alexandratos, 2008. "Food Price Surges: Possible Causes, Past Experience, and Longer Term Relevance," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 34(4), pages 663-697, December.
    7. Wang, Qizhi & Chidmi, Benaissa, 2009. "Cotton Price Risk Management across Different Countries," 2009 Annual Meeting, January 31-February 3, 2009, Atlanta, Georgia 46762, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    biofuels; feedstocks; food prices; policy.;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ias:cpaper:08-bp53. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/caiasus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.