brazil

Understanding how large-scale bioenergy production can affect biodiversity and ecosystems is important if society is to meet current and future sustainable development goals. A variety of bioenergy production systems have been established within different contexts throughout the Pan American region, with wide-ranging results in terms of documented and projected effects on biodiversity and ecosystems. The Pan American region is home to the majority of commercial bioenergy production and therefore the region offers a broad set of experiences and insights on both conflicts and opportunities for biodiversity and bioenergy. This paper synthesizes lessons learned focusing on experiences in Canada, the United States, and Brazil regarding the conflicts that can arise 6between bioenergy production and ecological conservation, and benefits that can be derived when bioenergy policies promote planning and more sustainable land-management systems. We propose a research agenda to address priority information gaps that are relevanLive t to biodiversity concerns and related policy challenges in the Pan American region.

This presentation provides an overview of biorefineries in the U.S. The presentation was given at the 1st Brazilian National Refinery Symposium (SNBr) At EMBRAPA
Brasilia, DF, Brazil. September 29, 2011.

We quantify the emergence of biofuel markets and its impact on U.S. and world agriculture for the coming decade using the multi-market, multi-commodity international FAPRI (Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute) model. The model incorporates the trade-offs between biofuel, feed, and food production and consumption and international feedback effects of the emergence through world commodity prices and trade. We examine land allocation by type of crop, and pasture use for countries growing feedstock for ethanol (corn, sorghum, wheat, sugarcane, and other grains) and major crops competing with feedstock for land resources such as oilseeds. We shock the model with exogenous changes in ethanol demand, first in the United States, then in Brazil, China, the European Union-25, and India, and compute shock multipliers for land allocation decisions for crops and countries of interest. The multipliers show at the margin how sensitive land allocation is to the growing demand for ethanol. Land moves away from major crops and pasture competing for resources with feedstock crops. Because of the high U.S. tariff on ethanol, higher U.S. demand for ethanol translates into a U.S. ethanol production expansion. The latter has global effects on land allocation as higher coarse grain prices transmit worldwide. Changes in U.S. coarse grain prices also affect U.S. wheat and oilseed prices, which are all transmitted to world markets. In contrast, expansion in Brazil ethanol use and production chiefly affects land used for sugarcane production in Brazil and to a lesser extent in other sugarproducing countries, but with small impacts on other land uses in most countries.