A new report, titled Reconciling Food Security and Bioenergy: Priorities for Action, challenges previous studies that blame biofuels for food insecurity for relying on "faulty", "questionable" and "subjective" assumptions to reach their conclusions.
 
Published in the journal Global Change Biology - Bioenergy, the report stresses that "good science is essential to inform decisions" and that the simplistic global analyses used in some studies "obscure the main drivers of local food insecurity and ignore opportunities for bioenergy to contribute to solutions."
 
Bliss Baker, the President of the Global Renewable Fuels Alliance (GRFA), welcomed the report and noted "For several years there has been a troubling amount of misinformation surrounding the impacts of global biofuels production". Baker added "When done right, biofuels production promotes price stability, incentivizes investments in infrastructure where it is most needed and improves sustainability of non-biofuels crops."
 
The report notes that best practices for the development of effective bioenergy policies have been published in papers by UNCTAD, FAO, and by FAO, IFAD and the WFP. In their conclusions, the authors of the report recommend policies for the increased production of flex-crops, promotion of stable prices and investment to build capacity and infrastructure to maximize the local benefits biofuels production.
 
"It is clear that biofuels are a key part of the global agricultural complex." Baker said. "The proper development of biofuels internationally will not only help to reduce global hunger but will also have a significant role to play in achieving the emission reduction targets established in the Paris Agreement reached at COP 21" he concluded.

Read the report here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcbb.12366/full
 

The Global Renewable Fuels Alliance 
www.globalrfa.org