CONTENTS

Chapter – 1 Industrial Biofuel : A false solution for addressing climate change
Chapter 2 Food for People vs Fuel for Cars : Biofuels a threat to Food Security
Chapter 3 Jatropha and Land Grab
Chapter 4 Case Studies of Jatropha Plantations
Chapter 5 Towards Sustainable, Biodiverse, Decentralised Bioenergy alternatives for India
Conclusion
Recommendations

Executive Summary

The Biofuel Hoax

Biofuels have been proposed as a major “solution” to address the climate crisis and the problem of “peak oil”. By substituting fossil fuels, they are supposed to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emissions which are leading to global warming.

Instead, Industrial biofuels are being promoted as a source of renewable energy and as a means towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, there are two ecological reasons why converting crops like Soya, corn and palm oil into liquid fuels can actually aggravate climate chaos and the CO2 burden.

Firstly, deforestation caused by expanding Soya plantations and palm oil plantations is leading to increased CO2 emissions. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 1.6 billion tons or 25 to 30 per cent of the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere each year comes from deforestation. By 2022, biofuel plantations could destroy 98% of Indonesia’s rainforests.

According to Wetlands International, destruction of Forest lands in South East Asia for palm oil plantations is contributing to 8% of the global CO2 emissions. According to Delft Hydraulics, every tonne of palm oil results in 30 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions or 10 times as much as petroleum products. However, this additional burden on the atmosphere is treated as a clean development mechanism in the Kyoto Protocol for reducing emissions. Biofuels are thus contributing to the same global warming which they are supposed to reduce. (World Rainforest Bulletin No.112, Nov 2006, Page 22). Further, the conversion of biomass to liquid fuel uses more fossil fuels than it substitutes.

David Pimental and Ted Patzek have shown that all crops have a negative energy balance when converted to biofuels i.e. it takes more fossil fuel energy input to produce the equivalent energy in biofuel. Thus, for each unit of energy spent in fossil fuel, the output is 0.778 unit of energy in maize ethanol, 0.688 unit in switch grass ethanol, 0.534 in soya bean diesel. (D Pimental and T.W. Potzeh “Ethanol production using corn, switch grass and wood: biodiesel production using soybean and sunflower”. Natural Resources Research, 2005, 14, 65-76)

One gallon of ethanol production requires 28,000 kcal. This provides 19,400 kcal of energy. Thus the energy efficiency is - 43%.

Unites States will use 20% of its corn to produce 5 billion gallons of ethanol which will substitute 1% of oil use. If 100% of corn was used, only 7% of the total oil would be substituted. This is clearly not a solution either for peak oil or climate chaos.

Seeds of Hunger

The spread of industrial biofuels is thus not solving the problem of climate change. It is instead creating landlessness.The diversion of food crops to fuel has led to increase in food prices.

Fidel Castro in an article titled “Food stuff as Imperial weapon: Biofuels and Global Hunger” has said:

More than three billion people are being condemned to a premature death from hunger and thirst.

The biofuel sector worldwide has grown rapidly. United states and Brazil have established ethanol industries and the European Union is also fast catching up to explore the potential market. Governments all over the world are encouraging biofuel production with favourable policies. United states is pushing the other third world nations of the world to go in for biofuel production so that their energy needs get met at the expense of plundering others resources.

In India there are plans to use Sorghum and sugarcane for Ethanol. India is the largest prouder of sugar in the world. The sugar industry has deliberately created a crisis by not paying sugar cane farmers. The crisis is being used to propose that the use of sugar cane for Ethanol would help the farmers. Sorghum, a nutritious rainfed cereal is also being developed into ethanol. India is the second largest producer of Sorghum in the World. The World bank supported International Crops Research Institute for the semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), under the CGIAR has played the lead role in breeding of sorghum for Ethanol and its promotion.

With effect from January 1^st 2003, India has allowed 5% blending of Ethanol with petrol and wanted to increase it by 10%.

Land Grab through Jatropha

Industrial biofuels are also leading to a massive land grab as shown by the case studies of Jatropha plantations in India carried out by Navdanya. Both agicultural lands and village commons are being appropriated, undermining Food Security and Ecological Security.

In Chhattisgarh, agricultural crops of tribals have been destroyed to plant Jatropha. The tribals were denied their inherent right to decide upon what to do with their commons and it’s a violation of the legal recognition of collective rights under the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA). The study also shows details of the villages in Chhattisgarh which have faced land conflicts because the people have opposed the cultivation of Jatropha plantations.

In Vidarbha, Maharashtra, corporates have taken advantage of the failed cotton crops of the farmers and have lured them into cultivating Jatropha. The corporates have been successful in inducing the farmers into Jatropha on the false promise that the plantations will give immense returns after three years. The Government is also providing subsidies to the farmers who plant Jatropha. A farmer has committed suicide in Vidarbha because of the Government’s inability to provide him with the promised subsidy.

Rajasthan has passed a new law to transfer village common lands to corporations for Jatropha plantations. The destruction of the livelihoods of pastoralists and livestock herders such as Gujjars have already led to major riots in Rajasthan. The transfer of commons and grazing lands from providing fodder to livestock in the local economy to providing fuel for automobiles of the rich will further erode rural livelihoods and increase social tensions.

Diversion of biodiversity and biomass from the rural poor to industry will exacerbate poverty and undermine sustainability.

The poor live in a biomass / biodiversity based economy. Diversion of land to industrial biofuels will also divert biodiversity / organic matter from basic needs of the poor and maintenance of ecological cycles. It will create total destitution and collapse of rural agro-ecosystems as biodiversity and water are diverted by industry for biofuel.

Where ever Jatropha is cultivated on cropland or common lands, food security is undermined. When agricultural lands are diverted from food crops to biodiesel crops, there is scarcity of food. When common lands are diverted to Jatropha from fodder, there is less food for animals and the livestock economy is undermined. Less animals means less dairy products which directly affects the nutritional security of the people especially the children. Less animals also means less organic manure which undermines food security by robbing soils of vital organic matter needed for renewal of soil fertility

Chapter 1

Industrial Biofuel : A False Solution for Addressing Climate Change

Ecological, Diverse, Decentralised Biofuels vs Industrial Biofuels

Biofuels, i.e fuels from biomass, continue to be the most important energy source for the poor in the world. The ecological biodiverse farm is not just a source of food, it is also a source of energy. Energy for cooking the food comes from the inedible biomass like stalks of millets and pulses, agro-forestry species and village wood lots. Managed sustainably, village commons has been a source of decentralized energy for centuries. Decentralised energy from biomass is a vital part of the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies. Biomass can be used directly as cooking and heating fuel. It can be turned into biogas, a decentralized energy alternative Gandhi promoted. Biofuels can be used to generate electricity for decentralized use, and can be part of a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels and nuclear to lighting the last hut of the poor. If embedded in a democratic, decentralized framework of management and decision making and ownership and control over natural resources, decentralized biofuels can rejuvenate biodiversity, recycle carbon enhance agricultural productivity, increase the resilience of agro ecosystems to climate change and increase the food and energy security for the poor.

However, the current euphoria over industrial biodufels is promoting monocultures and destroying biodiversity, promoting continued luxury consumption of the rich to drive cars at the cost of basic needs of the poor to food and domestic energy, promoting centralized corporate ownership and control over land and biomass by grabbing it from the poor.

In 1995 there were 34 countries where wood fuels provided more than 70% of energy needs and in 13 countries wood fuel provided 90% or more energy.

Region	Woodfuels mm³ equivalent			Share total energy (%)
Region	Fuelwood	Charcoal	Black liquor	Share total energy (%)
Africa	445	131	34	15
Asia (developing)	859	72	3	35
Oceania (developing)	6	0	0	52
Latin America and Caribbean	223	34	19	12
Europe, Israel, Turkey	56	2	51	3
Former USSR	32	0	8	1
Canada and United States	96	4	146	3
Australia, New Zealand, Japan	3	0	23	1
World Total	1700	143	284	7

Table: Woodfuel consumption and share of total energy use (1995)

	1994			2010
	Area	Mass	Energy	Area	Mass	Energy
	1000 ha	kt	PJ	1000 ha	kt	PJ
Total woodfuel consumption		645,895	9,688		811,548	12,173
Potential woodfuel supply
Forest land	416,204	669,812	10,047	370,363	629,339	9,440
Agricultural areas	876,933	601,407	9,021	971,062	692,088	10,381
Other wooded lands	93,140	53,994	810	81,368	47,170	708
Deforestation waste	(4,253)	605,565	9,083	(3,114)	437,710	6,566
Total woodfuel potentially available	1,382,024	1,930,778	28,962	1,419,679	1,806,307	27,095
50% of crop process residues	876,933	218,915	3,458	971,062	322,024	5,105
Total potentially available		2,149,693	32,420		2,128,331	32,200

Table: Consumption and potential supply of biomass fuels in 16 Asian countries

The diverse crop and tree species that have supplied rural energy in biodiverse agro ecosystems do not appear in the new lexicon of “biofuels”. Biofuels are not anymore an agrarian product for needs of the rural poor. Infact they are not even a complementary product to food, instead they are in competition with food. They are not part of the diversified and decentralized, sustainable and equitable food and energy system.

Industrial biofuels are not the fuels for the poor; they are the foods of the poor, transformed into heat, electricity, and transport of the rich. Liquid biofuels, in particular ethanol and bio-diesel, are one of the fastest growing sectors of production, driven by the search of alternatives to fossil fuels both to avoid the catastrophe of peak oil and to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The promotion of industrial biofuels is based on legislation and policy. Laws are being enacted to promote and subsidise liquid fuels by diverting land from food to industrial plantations. From the richest countries in the North to the poorest countries in the South, food security is being forgotten in order to keep the energy infrastructure of the fossil fuel age “well oiled”, literally. The entire edifice of mobility built on oil from fossil fuels – diesel and petrol is being sought to be upheld and expanded on the basis of oil from plants – soya, corn, palmoil, jatropha etc. President Bush is trying to pass legislation to require the use of 35 billion gallons of biofuels by 2017. M. Alexander of the Sustainable Development Department of FAO has stated: “The gradual move away from oil has begun and over the next 15 to 20 years we may see biofuels providing a full 25 per cent of the world’s energy needs.”

Global production of biofuels alone has doubled in the last five years and is likely to double again in the next four years. Among countries that have enacted a new pro-biofuel policy in recent years are Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Columbia, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mexico, Mozambique, the Philippines, Senegal, South Africa, Thailand and Zambia.

Paul Wolfowitz, former World Bank President once said “Biofuels are an opportunity to add to the world supply of energy to meet the enormous growing demand and hopefully to mitigate some of the price effect. It’s an opportunity to do so in an environmentally friendly way and in a way that is carbon neutral. It is an opportunity to do so in a way that developing countries like Brazil can provide income and employment for their people.”

Are industrial biofuels carbon neutral? And are the poor gaining or loosing with the explosive production of industrial biofuels? What are the soil and ecological implication of the new policy obsession with industrial biofuels? What are the implications for land sovereignty and food sovereignty of the poor.

Industrial biofuels: Green or Pseudo Green

Industrial biofuels are being promoted as a source of renewable energy and as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, there are two ecological reasons why converting crops like Soya, corn and palm oil into liquid fuels can actually aggravate climate chaos and the CO2 burden and worsen the climate crisis while also contributing to biodiversity erosion and to depletion of water resources.

According to Wetlands International, destruction of South East Asia forest lands for palm oil plantations is contributing to 8% of the global CO2 emissions. According to Delft Hydraulics, every tonne of palm oil results in 30 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions or 10 times as much as petroleum producers. However, this additional burden on the atmosphere is treated as a Clean Development Mechanism(CDM) in the Kyoto Protocol for reducing emissions. Biofuels are thus contributing to the same global warming that they are supposed to reduce. (World Rainforest Bulletin No.112, Nov 2006, Page 22)

Further, the conversion of biomass to liquid fuel is highly energy intensive and uses more fossil fuels than it substitutes.

The energy balance of different crops is given in the table below

Crop	Yield (t/ha)	Energy Input (GJ)	Biomass Energy (GJ)	Output/ Input
Maize	8.655	33.978	130.459	3.84
Switch grass	10.000	11.535	167.480	14.52
Soybean	2.668	15.685	40.216	2.56
Sunflower	1.500	25.620	19.470	0.76
Oilseed Rape	4.080^a	12.159	54.346	4.47
	8.080^b	12.417	114.346	9.21
Wheat	8.960^a	12.562	74.189	5.91
	15.460^b	13.328	171.689	12.88

a grain; b grain and straw Source: Which Energy, 2006 Institute of Science in Society Energy Report

David Pimental and Ted Patzek have shown that all crops have a negative energy balance when converted to biofuels, i.e. it takes more fossil fuel energy input to produce the equivalent energy in biofuel. Thus for each unit of energy spent in fossil fuel, the return is 0.778 unit of energy in maize ethanol, 0.688 unit in switch grass ethanol, 0.534 in Soya bean diesel. (D Pimental and T.W. Potzeh “Ethanol production using corn, switch grass and wood: biodiesel production using soybean and sunflower. Natural Resources Research, 2005, 14, 65-76)

One gallon of ethanol production requires 28,000 kcal. This provides 19,400 kcal of energy. Thus the energy efficiency is 43%.

The U.S. will use 20% of its corn to produce 5 billion gallons of ethanol which will substitute 1% of oil use. If 100% of corn was used, only 7% of the total oil would be substituted. This is clearly not a solution either to peak oil or climate chaos. (David Pimental at IFG conference on “The Triple Crisis”, London, Feb 23-25, 2007)

And it is a source of other crisis. 1700 gallons of water are used to produce a gallon of ethanol. Corn uses more nitrogen fertilizer, more insecticides, more herbicides than any other crop.

Ethanol constitutes 99 per cent of all biofuels in the USA. In 2004 3.4 billion gallons of ethanol were produced in 2004 and blended into gasoline, amounting to about 2 per cent of gasoline and 1.3 per cent of energy. The government has introduced a $0.51 tax credit per gallon of ethanol and mandated a doubling of ethanol (7.5 billion gallons) to be used in gasoline by 2012 in the Energy Policy Act (2008)

Pimental and Patzek have shown that the cost of corn feedstock is $0.28/litre, which is 50% of the cost. Ethanol is getting $ 0.79/litre of subsidies which brings the subsidy bill to $ 3billion. Corn ethanol costs $1.88/litre. Since it has only 66 per cent energy per litre compared to oil, its real cost is $ 1.88/litre compared to $ 0.33/litre for gasoline. The total cost to the consumer of subsidizing corn ethanol is $ 8.4 billion/year.

According to Patzek “the United States has already wasted a lot of time, money and natural resources pursuing a mirage of an energy scheme that cannot possibly replace fossil fuels. The only real solution is to limit the rate of use of these fossil fuels. Everything else will lead to an eventual national disaster”. (p24 “which Energy, ISIS, 2006)

99% of all biofuel consumption in US is based on corn and soya. Its production is expected to exceed the 2012 targets of 7.5 billion gallons per year. (D. Pimental 2003, Ethanol fuels: Energy balance, economics and environmental impacts are negative, Nuclear Resources Research, 12: 127-134)

Even if all the US corn and Soya were converted to fuel, it would only substitute 12% of the petrol and 6% of the diesel. If the entire oil had to be substituted, it would need 1.4 million square miles of corn for ethanol or 8.8 million square miles for Soya for biodiesel. (H. Altieri and Elizabeth Bravo, The ecological and social tragedy of crop based biofuel production in the Americas)

The E.U. requirement to have 5% biofuel in oil by 2010 will require 69% more land to be cropped in Italy than is available, 102% additional water and 40% more chemicals. (Sergio Ulgiate at IFG conference on Triple Crisis)

In the U.K., 2.5% of the fuel will have to be biofuels by 2008, rising to 5% by 2010. By 2050, 33% of the biodiesel is supposed to come from crops. This is a recipe for disaster. It is a case of the cure being worse than the disease. The planet and the poor are loosing – the rainforests – the lungs, the heart, the liver of the planet – are being bulldozed to plant Soya and palm oil. The poor are loosing because land and water that would have produced food for the hungry is being used to run cars.

Automobile companies and agribusiness are the ones who gain from the use of liquid biofuels to run cars. Biofuels allow car manufacturers to keep selling cars inspite of peak oil and climate change. And they don’t allow them to do anything about fuel efficiency. As George Monbiot reports, ‘In February (2007) the European Commission was faced with a straight choice between fuel efficiency and biofuels. It has intended to tell car companies that the average carbon emission from new cars in 2012 would be 120 grams per kilometer. After heavy lobbying by Angela Merkel on behalf of the car manufacturers, it caved in and raised the limit to 130 grams. It announced that it would make up the shortfall by increasing the contribution from biofuel”. (George Monbiot: “If we want to save the planet, we need a five-year freeze on biofuels”. The Guardian, March 27, 2007)

Agribusiness is also benefitting from the expansion of Soya, corn, palm oil for biofuels. Monsanto can sell more herbicide resistant seeds and collect more royalties from Argentina and Brazil. Cargill can make more profits selling fertilizers and agro chemicals and trading in agricultural commodities for biofuel, while also increasing its profits margins in trade in food as prices rise.

Table showing some transnational corporations investing in agro-fuels

Agribusiness	ADM, Cargill, China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Import and Export Corporation, Nobel Group, DuPont, Syngenta, ConAgra, Bunge, Itochu, Marubeni, Louis Dreyfus
Sugar	British Sugar, Tate and Lyle, Tereos, Sucden, Cosan, AlcoGroup, EDF and Man, Bajaj Hindustan, Royal Nedalco
Palm Oil	IOI, Peter Cremer, Wilmar
Forestry	Weyerhauser, Tembec
Oil	British Petroleum, Eni, Shell, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Repsol, Chevron, Titan, Lukoil, Petrobras, Total, PetroChina, Bharat Petroleum, PT MEdco, Gulf Oil
Finance	Rabobank, Barclays, Societe Generale, Morgan Stanley, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Goldman Sachs, Carlyle Group, Kohsla Ventures, George Soros

Table showing corporate control of key agro-fuel feedstocks

	Top Corporations	Corporate Control
Maize Merchants (US)	Cargill, ADM	Top 3 control over 80% of US maize exports
Maize Seeds (US)	Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta	Monsanto controls 41% of global market
Sugar trade (Brazil)	Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, Cosan/Tereos/Sucden	Cargill is the largest shipper of raw sugar from Brazil
Palm oil trade (Global)	Wilmar, IOI, Synergy Drive, Cargill	60% of palm oil area in Malaysia is owned by corporations, only 9% is owned by individual landowners
Soya trade (Global)	Bunge, ADM, Cargill, Dreyfus	3 companies control 80% of European crushing: 5 companies control 60% of Brazilian production
Soya seeds (Global)	Monsanto, DuPont	Monsanto controls 25% of global market

Sources: ETC Group, WWF, UK Food Group and Cargill and Grain

Soya cultivation has already led to the destruction of 21 million ha of forests in Brazil, 14 million ha in Argentina, 2 million ha in Paraguay and 600,000 ha in Bolivia. Brazil will clear an additional 60 million ha of land due to the gold rush for Soya. Since 1995, Soya cultivation has been increasing at 3.2% (320,000 ha/yr) per year. 21% of Brazil’s cultivated area is now under Soya. 2.5 million people have been displaced in Panama and 300,000 in Rio Grade de Sul.

In Argentina, intensive Soya cultivation has led to closure of 60,000 farms. In 1998, there were 422,000 farms in Argentina. This had reduced to 318,000 in 2002. Soya area has increase 126 % to 13.7 million has in 2003/2004.

“The expansion of industrial Biofuels, as agro fuels, is also being viewed as a promotional investment for genetically modified crops”. (Agrofuels: Towards a reality check in areas, June, 2007, Biofuel Watch et.el.) Companies with growth have joined hands with Monsanto to especially modify crops to increase production of biofuels. Corporations are particularly active in promoting second generation biofuels. Cellulosic ethanol and Fishchee Tropsih gasification, which are intended to use lingo cellulosic biomass. Work is being done to genetically engineer plants with lower lignin levels because the lignin in plant cell walls impedes the breaking down of the cellulose.

The biotechnology industry is promoting second generation biofuels with the argument that it will not replace food grains with fuel, and hence not impact food security.

However, it is being feared that, the large scale removal of organic residues from fields will undermine food security by depriving soils of organic matter required for renewal of soil fertility and soil moisture conservation. This will require greater use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, their increasing nitrous oxide emissions are contributing to climate change. (soil not oil, Vandana shiva, Navdanya, sep 2007)

Stopping the biofuel madness requires a strengthening of the movements for land sovereignty, food sovereignty, and seed sovereignty. And it requires a consensus among citizens worldwide that it is moré important to defend the food rights of people and secure the climate than to find new avenues for automobile, oil and agribusiness corporations to make more money at the cost of people and the planet.

According to Martin Wolf[1] there is a flood of subsidies for production of Biofuels in the West. The cost of support per litre of ethanol varies between $0.29 and $0.36 per litre in the US and $1 in the EU (see chart). Support for biodiesel varies between $0.2 per litre in Canada and $1 in Switzerland. But the cost of petrol, in terms of equivalent energy units, is $0.34 and of diesel is $0.41. Thus, the subsidy to biofuels is often greater than the cost of the fossil fuel equivalent. Not surprisingly, the production costs of subsidised biofuels are also generally much higher (see charts).

Source: Financial Times

This highly subsidised source of demand is also creating deep impact on demand for foodstuffs from the United States. In 2007, for example, the increase in demand for corn-based ethanol will account for more than half of the global increase in demand. Much the same is true for US and EU use of soyabeans and rapeseed in biodiesel. The rising price of food is good for producers. It is dreadful, however, for consumers, particularly for those in poor food-importing countries. Increased production of biofuels also adds stress on existing land and water supplies.

Source: Financial Times

These subsidies will distort agriculture policy and encourage the farmers to divert their crops from food to fuel. This will promote monocultures and industrial agriculture which contribute to climate change. In effect, industrial biofuels will increase climate instability, it will not mitigate it.

Agribusiness such as Cargill, ADM, Bunge and the automobile industry such as General Motors, Volkswagen, A.G., Ford, Peugeot, and Renault, oil companies such as Bharat Petroleum, Shell, Chevron, and Total have set the ground for climate change. They will use the climate crisis which they have created to increase their market opportunities, even if it is at the cost of the starving poor and the planet is pushed to deeper climate disaster.

Biofuels: A Greenhouse Threat

Two important studies published on February 7^th 2008 reveal that biofuels cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if full emission costs of producing these green fuels are taken into account. The pair of studies were published in the journal Science. The studies follow a series of reports that have linked ethanol and biodiesel production to increased carbon dioxide emissions, destruction of biodiverse forest and air and water pollution. The destruction of natural ecosystems, whether rain forest in the tropics or grasslands in South America not only releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed, but also deprives the planet of natural sponges to absorb carbon emissions. Cropland also absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces. Together the two studies offer sweeping conclusions: It does not matter if it is rain forest or scrubland that is cleared, the greenhouse gas contribution is significant. More important, they discovered that, taken globally, the production of almost all biofuels resulted, directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, in new lands being cleared, either for food or fuel. Biofuels were originally billed as better than fossil fuels because the carbon released when they were burned was balanced by the carbon absorbed when the plants grew. But even that equation proved overly simplistic because the process of turning plants into fuels causes its own emissions, while refining and transport.

Dr Joseph Fargione, lead author of the second paper, and a scientist at the Nature conservancy says “ the clearance of grassland released 93 times the amount of greengas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land. Palm tree biodiesel in Indonesia and Malaysia, one of the most controversial biofuels currently in use, because of its connection to tropical deforestation in these countries has a carbon debt of 83 years. Soyabean biodiesel in the Amazonian rainforest has a debt of 320 years. “People don’t realize there is three times as much carbon in plants and soil than there is in the air. While we cut down forests, burn them, churn the soil, we release all the soil we release all the carbon that was being stored” says Dr Fargione. The studies show that the purchase of biofuels in Europe and the United States leads indirectly to the destruction of the natural habitats far a field. This has also been proven by the Navdanya study where the grass lands and common lands are being destroyed in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.

According to Dr Fargione, the dedication of so much cropland in the United States to growing corn for bio ethanol had caused indirect land use changes far away. Previously, Midwestern farmers had alternated corn with soya in their fields, one year to the next. Now many grow only corn, meaning that Soya has to be grown elsewhere.

Chapter 2

Food for People vs Fuel for Cars : Biofuels a threat to Food Security

Fossil fuels are mined from below the ground. The fossil fuel economy is coming up against two limits :

The first is the limit of the exhaustion of non-renewable fossil fuel resources symbolized as peak oil. The second is the limit being created by pollution due to fossil fuel consumption symbolised as climate change.

The infrastructure that the fossil fuel economy has created, of cars and airplanes, of long distance transport and energy intensive industrial production and energy wasteful lifestyles can no longer be maintained on the basis of fossil fuels due to the limits of dwindling resources and the limits set by pollution

There are two options to peak oil and climate change. One that Richard Heinberg has called “Power Down” i.e the reduction of energy use and consumption by the rich. The other option is “Power-Up” i.e the increase of energy consumption by the rich by taking away the land and food of the poor. Bio ethanol and bio-diesel divert land from food to industrial biofuel.

There are two types of industrial biofuels – ethanol and biodiesel. Ethanol can be produced from products rich in saccharose such as sugarcane and molasses, substances rich in starch such as maize, barley and wheat. Ethanol is blended with petrol. Biodiesel is produced from vegetable only such as palm oil, soya oil, and rapeseed oil. Biodiesel is blended with diesel.

Representatives of organizations and social movements from Brazil, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Columbia, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic in a declaration titled “Full Tanks at the Cost of Empty Stomachs”, wrote “The current model of production of bio-energy is sustained by the same elements that have always caused the oppression of our people’s appropriation of territory, of natural resources, and the labor force.”

And Fidel Castro in an article titled “Food stuff as Imperial weapon: Biofuels and Global Hunger” has said:

More than three billion people are being condemned to a premature death from hunger and thirst.

The biofuel sector worldwide has grown rapidly. United States and Brazil have established ethanol industries and the European Union is also fast catching up to explore the potential market. Governments all over the world are encouraging biofuel production with favourable policies. United States is pushing the third world nations of the world to go in for biofuel production so that their energy needs are met at the expense of plundering other’s resources.

United States, because of its perennial demand for energy, is one country, which is promoting industrial biofuels in a big way. Cuban President Fidel Castro has strongly criticised the use of biofuels by the US. He lashed out at the recently signed ethanol deal between Brazil and the US and described it as “the internationalisation of genocide”[2] .

The deal, struck shortly after US President George Bush’s widely protested tour of Latin America, aims to encourage the development of biofuels projects in poor countries, particularly in the Caribbean and Central America, and promote a global biofuels market. Brazil and the US will also cooperate more closely on researching and developing biofuels technology.

Washington’s interest in ethanol began after Bush pronounced in January 2006 that US was “addicted to oil”, and that this posed a “national security problem” because it is “often imported from unstable parts of the world”. Last year, the US produced 18 billion litres of ethanol from 53 million tonnes of corn. More land being used to grow corn for ethanol production has caused corn and other food-crop prices to rise.

Castro pointed out that Washington’s policy has already increased the average price of corn at US ports to US$167 per tonne, which has had a flow-on effect on the price of corn worldwide. In Mexico the price of tortillas, a staple, has increased by 100%, triggering massive protests in January 2007.

Castro warned that the increasing use of biofuels by the US and other rich countries would create a global food crisis that will condemn more than 3 billion people to death from starvation and lack of water. Castro asked, “Where and who is going to supply more than 500 million tonnes of corn and other cereals” that the US and other rich countries need. He pointed out that the current global grain surplus, after fulfilling human needs, is only 80 million tonnes.

Inevitably, this massive increase in the demand for grains is going to come at the expense of the satisfaction of human needs, with poor people priced out of the food market. On February 28, the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement released a statement noting that “the expansion of the production of biofuels aggravates hunger in the world. We cannot maintain our tanks full while stomachs go empty.”[3]

The diversion of food for fuel has already increased the price of corn and Soya. There have been riots in Mexico because of the price rise of tortillas. And this is just the beginning. Imagine the land needed for providing 25% of the oil from food. The cost of beef in U.S have increased by $ 1 billion/year. Poultry costs have risen to $1.5/year.

One tonne of corn produces 413 litres of ethanol. 35 million gallons of ethanol requires 320 million tons of corn. The U.S. produced 280.2 million tons of corn in 2005. As a result of NAFTA, the U.S. made Mexico dependent on U.S. corn, and destroyed the small farms of Mexico. This was in fact the basis of the Zapatista uprising. As a result of corn being diverted to biofuels, prices of corn have increased in Mexico.

The agrarian crisis created by trade liberalization and globalisation is being used in India to promote the conversion of food crops to ethanol. The argument being used is that the farmers will get a better price for these crops.

The two target crops are sugarcane and sorghum. India grows as much sugarcane as Brazil, but India is the largest producer of sugar, with 30% of sugar cane being used for sugars like gur and Khan dasari and 60% being used for industrial sugar. In Brazil 55% sugar cane is used for production of Ethanol and 45% goes into the production of sugar. The sugar Industry in India has deliberately created a crisis for sugar cane farmers by not paying them for their crops. It is now using this crisis it has created to promote diversion of sugarcane from Human food to ethanol for cars.

Sorghum, a cereal that grows in the semi arid tropics is another food crop being promoted for Ethanol. The International Crop Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropic (ICRISAT), one of the CGIAR institutes run by the World bank has been breeding or promoting Sorghum for Ethanol. Corporations like Tata and Seagram are jumping into the ethanol bandwagon. Tatas are to produce Ethanol from sorghum with a 60,000 litre capacity plant to be set up at Nanded.

The Government of India has introduced an Ethanol policy on 3^rd September 2002 (p- 45018/28/2000 C.C Gazette of India) which states that “Government has now resolved that with effect from 1.1.2003, 5% of Ethanol doped Petrol will be supplied in the following nine states and four Union territories. Andhra pradesh, Daman and Diu, Goa, Dader & Nager Haveli, Gujarat, Chandigarh, Haryana, Pondichery, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil nadu and Uttar Pradesh”.

With the automobile explosion in India and high fuel prices, ethanol demand is growing. Projected overall demand is outpacing supply. Of the 132 million Gallons of Ethanol required, only 37% is currently produced. Investment by US ethanol producers are also being promoted for ethanol exports.

In Argentina the pampas, the regions biggest and most diverse ecosystem is under threat from the expansion of herbicide resistant Soya cultivation. Soya has become Argentina’s biggest export. If deforestation continues at the current rate, the forest ranges of the Yungas will disappear by 2010. More than 2.3 million hectares of dry and humid vegetation have been cleared for soya since 1995. Forests are disappearing and people are being displaced. Three out of five people in Chaco have been driven out of rural areas to Argentina’s slums. (Rozy Corroll & Oliver Balch, “Soya King Changes face of Pampas”, The Observer 17 Jun 2007)

Biofuels have in fact become a basis of legitimizing the spread of GM Soya. President Lula of Brazil has declared that GM Soya is to be used for biofuels and “good” Soya for human consumption.

While the Amazon is being destroyed for Soya, for cattle feed and biofuels, the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra are being cut down for palm oil. Ninety per cent of the world’s palm oil is grown in Indonesia and Malaysia. Indonesia has 6 million hectares of land under oil palm and has cleared three times as much 18 million ha of forests to expand palm oil plantations. A further 20 million has have been allocated in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulewesi and West Papua. Plans are also being made to establish the world’s largest oil palm plantation of 1.8 million hectares in the heart of Borneo’s rainforests. Biodiesel has become the most important reason for palm oil expansion, and palm oil has become the most important reason for tropical deforestation in South East Asia. (Marcos Colchester et. Al. “Promised Land: Palm Oil and Land Acquisition in Indonesia, 17 Nov 2006. Savit Watch and World Agroforestry Centre)

In Malaysia too Palm oil expansion is the reason for rainforest destruction and the disappearance of countless species of plants and animals. 54 projects have been set up to create B100, a biodiesel based on 100 per cent palm oil. The new fuel will be exported to Europe as “green” fuel. But are industrial biofuels truly green?

Biofuels: A threat to Food Security

Energy security has become an area of significance, engaging the attention of all countries. Bio-fuels have come into prominence as they are considered to be environmentally friendly with reduced gas emissions. Less dependence on fossil fuels is a goal, which many nations have set for themselves. The US has fixed a target of reduction in petroleum consumption by 20 per cent in the next 10 years, largely by turning to ethanol and other alternative fuels. Bio-fuels are thus considered to be a viable option for achieving the targeted reduction by many countries.

In Europe and in America the preferred option of bio-fuel is agricultural products. These include corn, soya bean, rape seed, wheat, sugar beet, sugar cane and palm oil. It is least surprising that a country such as United States, predominantly dictated by the interests of the automobile industry and is self-sufficient in food, has settled for agro-based bio-fuels rather than thinking in terms of reduced consumption. The use of corn for ethanol production and their demand for Soya bean oil has increased world food prices by about 10 per cent, according to an IMF report.

GRAIN FOR FILLING ONE SUV TANK WITH ETHANOL

=

GRAIN CONSUMED BY A PERSON FOR ONE YEAR

Biofuel production has pushed up feedstock prices. The clearest example is maize, whose price rose by 23 percent in 2000 and by 50 percent over the past two years, largely because of the U.S. ethanol program. Spurred by subsidies and the Renewable Fuel Standard issued in 2005, the United States has been diverting more maize to ethanol. Because, it is the world’s largest maize exporter, biofuel expansion in the United States has contributed to a decline in grain stocks to a low level and has put upward pressure on world cereal prices. Largely because of biodiesel production, similar price increases have occurred for vegetable oils (palm, soybean, and rapeseed). Cereal supply is likely to remain constrained in the near term and prices will be subject to upward pressure from further supply shocks, provided there is not another major surge in energy prices.

Worldwide agricultural commodity price increases were significant during 2004-06: corn prices rose by 54 percent; wheat by 34 percent, soybean oil by 71 percent and sugar by 75 percent. But this trend accelerated in 2007, due to continued demand for biofuels and drought in major producing countries. Wheat prices have risen more than 35 percent since the 2006 harvest, while corn prices have increased nearly 28 percent. The price of soya bean oil has been particularly volatile, due to high demand growth in China, the U.S., and the European Union (EU), as well as lower global stocks.

The Hamburg-based oilseeds analysts Oil World has predicted a deficit of 17 to18 million tonnes in the output of major oil seeds during 2007-08 and a food crisis unless the use of agricultural products for bio-fuels is curbed or if the weather conditions are ideal and sharply higher crop yields are achieved in 2008.

More alarming is the forecast that food prices will increase by 20 to 40 per cent in the next decade. The projected scenario should kindle rethinking on bio-fuel front in countries such as India where vagaries of monsoon still affect the performance of agricultural sector.

The officials in Government of India take pride in the fact that India’s choice of jatropha is ideal as it can be cultivated in wastelands. The expectation is that 400,000 million acres of wasteland can be brought under jatropha cultivation to reduce 20 per cent of the country’s diesel consumption by 2011. For the Government biofuels offer a potential source of renewable energy and possible large new markets for agricultural producers. But the biofuels programs in India are economically unviable, and most have social and environmental costs: upward pressure on food prices, intensified competition for land and water, and possibly, deforestation.

In India, there are attempts to substitute the land where food crops are grown, with Jatropha. The Government of Chhattisgarh has issued notices in some of the tribal villages in Bilaspur District to vacate their land where they have been carrying out rice cultivation for more than 40 years.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned that diverting food crop land to extensive cultivation for biofuels would damage biodiversity and lead to a serious threat to food security.

Biofuels leading to water Scarcity

A Study, conducted by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) supported International Water Management Institute (IWMI) warns that the ambitious plans in China and India to greatly increase domestic production of biofuels derived from crops will put greater stress on these countries water supplies, seriously undermining their ability to meet future food and feed demands. In many areas where water is already scarce, biofuel production could threaten river and ground water systems. The study says that the biofuel production in India raises special concerns because the crop used to make biofuel in India, sugarcane, would rely mainly on irrigation. China aims to increase their biofuel production by four fold, from a 2002 level of 3.6 billion litres of bioethanol to around 15 billion litres by 2020, or 9% of the country’s projected gasoline demand. India is also pursuing a similar aggressive policy. To meet the targets China would need to produce 26% more maize and India 16% more sugarcane. Doing so China would require an extra 75 litres of irrigation water per person everyday and India would need an additional 70 litres per day, per person, beyond that needed for food.

Crop production for Biofuels in India is likely to jeopardize sustainable water use and thus affect irrigated production of food crops, including cereals and vegetables, which would then imported in large quantities. Over a third of the global population contend with water scarcity, according to the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, a report prepared in consultation with more than 700 experts on water management in agriculture over the last 50 years. The assessment, which was released earlier this year, shows that to feed another 2 to 3 billion people, with incomes rising and diets diversifying, the demand for water for food would increase between 20 to 55 percent, depending on decisions made about water. This analysis does not take into account water for biofuels, which will put greater stress on water systems and make it more difficult to achieve food security for all. The IWMI study notes that producing a litre of maize based ethanol consumes 3500 litres of irrigation water, because ethanol production is dependent on heavily irrigated sugarcane.

According to Charlotte de Fraiture, scientist, IWMI, governments are showing interest in biofuels production in the hope that it will strengthen energy security, create new opportunities for farmers and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. “But they must also take fully into account the potential impacts on water resources. It seems unlikely that China and India, with their rapid economic growth, will be able to meet future demand for food, feed and biofuels without either aggravating water scarcity or importing grain.”

Rising Foodgrain prices in India

Biofuel production has pushed up feedstock prices in the world. The clearest example is maize, whose price rose by 23 percent in 2006 and by some 60 percent over the past two years, largely because of the U.S. ethanol program. Spurred by subsidies and the Renewable Fuel Standard issued in 2005, the United States has been diverting more maize to ethanol. Because it is the world’s largest maize exporter, biofuel expansion in the United States has contributed to a decline in grain stocks to a low level and has put upward pressure on world cereal prices. Largely because of biodiesel production, similar price increases have occurred for vegetable oils (palm, soybean, and rapeseed).

How the poor in India can get affected

The fears in India are also coming true with the world Development report (WDR) 2008 revealing that India will have to increase its cereal production by 50% by 2030 to meet the escalating worldwide demand and the increasing shift towards biofuel will further add to the crisis. India has once deferred wheat imports with global prices hitting an all-time high and according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, the continuing strong demand for cereals was putting pressure on international prices. International wheat prices in January were recorded at 83% over the same period last year. The WDR 2008, focusing on agriculture and development, has warned that the long-term downward trend in food prices would also drift upwards and add to food insecurity. The government of India was forced to hike the Petrol and diesel charges in February 2008 and now any increased dependency of imports and escalating Food prices could also turn out to be sources of economic and political trouble. The report also warns that the potential conflict between food and fuel is bound to increase in the days to come as seen in the conflicts over agricultural land in chhattisgarh between the tribals and the Government, who wanted to plant jatropha. The biofuel programme in India is not only is creating problems of food security and land acquisition to grow biofuel crops, but at the same time, have not been able to solve the fuel crisis also.

In India, the availability of adequate food supplies could be threatened by bioenergy production if land and other productive resources are shifted away from food crop cultivation. The degree of competition between energy crops and food and fodder production would depend, among other things, on progress in crop yields, livestock feeding efficiency and bioenergy conversion technologies. Many of the crops currently used as feedstock in liquid biofuel production require high quality agricultural land and significant inputs in terms of fertilizers, pesticides and water. India lacks in all these aspects. The agriculture depends on the vagaries of the rain and the crop yield will depend upon it. Further stress on biofuels will result in increased use of fertilizers and pesticides which will be beneficial only for the fertilizer companies and like the study of International Water management Institute (IWMI) has predicted will result in increased use of water.

If biofuel production pushes up commodities prices in India, the households will not be able to produce sufficient food . This can hamper their access to food which is directly related to food prices and income. In United States in the late 2006 price of maize reached the highest level due to the growing demand for ethanol production. Rising maize prices in turn induced livestock producers to seek alternative feeds and put upward pressure on other grain prices. India should learn from such examples by taking adequate lessons in view of the already rising food prices in the last couple of years.

Price volatility can disrupt the stability of food security particularly for low income consumers. Agricultural commodity prices have long been influenced by energy prices, because of the importance of fertilizers and machinery as inputs in commodity production processes. Expanded use of agricultural commodities for biofuel production would strengthen this price relationship and could increase the volatility of food prices in India.

Tapping tree’s potential as source of energy

In order to satisfy the growing demand for energy, scientists have ventured into genetic engineering process to change the composition of trees. Aiming to turn trees into new energy sources, scientists are using a controversial genetic engineering process to change the composition of the wood. A major goal is to reduce the amount of lignin, a chemical compound that interferes with efforts to turn the tree’s cellulose into biofuels like ethanol. Vincent L. Chiang, co-director of the forest biotechnology group at North Carolina State University, has developed transgenic trees with as little as half the lignin of their natural counterparts. Environmentalists say such work can be risky, because lignin provides trees with structural stiffness and resistance to pests. Even some scientists working on altering wood composition acknowledge that reducing lignin too much could lead to wobbly, vulnerable trees. “The general public is not going to look at trees at this point as a row crop,” said Susan McCord, executive director of the Institute of Forest Biotechnology in Raleigh, N.C. “The same is true of foresters. The people who go into that work, they love trees. They view it differently than a row of corn. Ethanol is mainly made from the starch in corn kernels. To increase the supply to make a dent in the nation’s energy picture, scientists are looking at using cellulose, a component of the cell wall in the plants. The new focus on biofuels has brought a renewed interest in tree biotechnology, and new money for it, from the Energy Department. The field has been languishing because of technical challenges, costs, environmental concerns and financial problems in the forest products industry.

Source: Andrew Pollack, Financial Express, February 2008

Chapter 3 JATROPHA AND LAND GRAB

The biofuel crop being promoted in India is Jatropha.

Jatropha curcas is a plant indigenous to Central America, brought to Asia and Africa by Portuguese and Dutch mariners. It has been used as a hedge because animals do not eat it. The oil comes from the plum sized fruit whose kernel contains 60% oil.

While Jatropha is inedible and unlike the use of corn or soya for biofuel, it is not a direct diversion of a food crop, it has serious consequences for food security, land security and livelihood security of the poor.

Jatropha is either being promoted on agricultural land with high subsidies to farmers, or it is being promoted on village common lands which support food security through grazing and pastures for livestock.

The encouragement for biofuels has turned out to be another form of land grab and as usual here too it’s the farmers, the tribals and the socially and economically weaker sections of the society are affected. Land is being acquired in many parts for India to fuel the cars of the rich. The powers of the state are being used to assault innocent farmers and tribals, as seen in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, defending their land rights, guaranteed by the Constitution. The land grab for biofuels has emerged as a threat for the agrarian and livestock economy in many states in India. It is also threatening the decentralized democracy of the country, which has made local communities, the competent bodies to make decisions on natural resources, as per the PESA Act 1996. This kind of land grab will totally pauperize our peasantry and destroys their livelihood. The companies are commodifying Land and Food crops with the active support of the state

Multi pronged effects of Biofuels

The tribals in Chhattisgarh are being robbed of their land in which they have been cultivating rice for the last 40 years. The Government want to plant jatropha in those lands. The villagers in Rajasthan are losing their grazing lands as the Government wants to plant jatropha in spite of the opposition from the Panchayat. Village community pastures are the common resources in Rajasthan, having potential for equitable accessibility to all classes for the rural population. The Jatropha cultivation is severely limiting the ability of the commons to support rural livelihoods comprehensively and thereby harming the ecological services they render. Livestock is the major source of livelihood for the poor and they are heavily dependent on the common pastures for the grazing of their cattle. By planting Jatropha the fodder availability of the cattle will be directly affected. These areas have turned out to be hotspots of conflict in the name of land.

The cultivation of Biofuel crops in India has emerged as a threat to the social, economic and political security of India. Least importance is given to the constitutional rights of the people regarding the management of their natural resources and the rules of decentralised democracy. There will be more conflicts in the name of land. The increased production of biofuels can result in increase in the price of food and thereby making it difficult for the poor for access to food. In short biofuels could be a recipe for violence and civic breakdown, for hunger, for climate chaos and ecological catastrophe.

India’s Biodiesel Programme

In the year 2005-06 the oil import bill of India swelled to 40 million US dollars in the first 11 months of the fiscal year. According to one of the estimates India’s energy needs will double by 2020 and we will require crude oil imports almost three times the present levels and that at a cost equal to the present total foreign exchange reserves of the country. Foreseeing such a situation the government has set up a committee on development of biofuel under the auspices of Planning Commission, four years ago and they have submitted a report in April 2003 which recommends a major multidimensional program to replace 20% of India’s diesel consumption by biodiesel. For this purpose the planning commission has integrated the ministries of petroleum, rural development, poverty alleviation and environment. One of the main objectives was to blend petro-diesel with bio diesel produced from non-edible Jatropha oil.

In order to meet this, the planning commission prescribed for the cultivation of Jatropha in 11 million hectares of ‘unused land’ or wasteland. But what does the planning commission actually means by unused land is not defined.

The National biodiesel mission will be implemented in two stages.

1 A demonstration project carried out over the period 2003-2007 aimed at cultivation of 400,000 hectares of Jatropha to yield about 3.75 tonnes of oil seed per hectare annually.

2 A commercialization period during 2007-2012 will continue Jatropha cultivation and install more transesterification plants, which will position India to meet 20 percent of its diesel needs through biodiesel.

According to Mr. S.K Chopra, Special Secretary, ministry of New and Renewable resources, “The national policy on biofuels is under the consideration of Government of India”. It has been four years since the National Biodiesel mission is declared and the government is yet to come out with a properly defined policy on biofuels.

The promoters of biofuels think that they can solve the problem of fossil fuel imports, foreign exchange burden and the green house gas emissions by large scale production of industrial biofuels. The promoters are hoping that the biofuel industry in India will catch up soon and they are waiting for the government of India to come up with a policy on biofuels. The industry is of the opinion that they are yet to explore the huge potential. India can offer for biofuel production and they are all set it explore it as much as possible.

According to the promoters, the Indian biodiesel program is apparently less destructive than biofuels based on corn and soya. It is based on non-edible oil, jatropha, which is supposed to be cultivated on wastelands. However, there is a historical discrepancy about the terms “village commons” and “wastelands” which will be dealt in detail in the next chapter.

The village commons are a major source of basic needs for village community especially fuel and fodder. And the fodder from grazing lands and village pastures are vital for sustaining agriculture. Therefore, the transfer of commons to biodiesel jatropha plantations is in effect an enclosure of the commons and a threat to food security. Jatropha is also leading to land grab of the poor. Hari Ram Gujjar of Kuncholi Village and Jamini Bai Bheel of Mala Magra in Mawli Tehsil of Udaipur district were uprooted from their land for jatropha. In Rajasthan both Jatropha and SEZ are synonymous with land grabbing.

The Ministry of Rural development is the leading ministry for the National Mission on Biofuels. Rural development ministry will be working with the Ministry of New and Renewable energy, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to make this mission a success. The companies hope that the policy on biofuels will address the issues of cultivation practices, buy back arrangement, standard price settings for Jatropha, marketing and other specifications.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural gas has announced a biofuel purchase policy in October 2005. This policy requires the purchase of Biofuel by Indian companies at the price of Rs 25 per litre at 20 specified centers across 12 states. The suppliers have to get registered with the state level coordinator of oil companies. The union budget in February 2007 has announced a full exemption for biofuels from excise duties. The government is also considering a minimum support price to be announced for non edible oil seeds used for production of biodiesel. This could be announced by the central government and implemented by the state government. So the oil companies will be able to buy the biodiesel on the basis of a competitive tendering process. Inspite of the purchase policy of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas the companies are unable to undertake any substitution of conventional fuel by bio fuels due to costs and convenience. Therefore, the companies involved want the government to come out with a clear cut policy and efficient legislation and consider declaring the minimum support price and budgetary allocations.

Biofuel has become the buzzword and innumerable companies have sprung up in a rush to cultivate Jatropha and set up oil processing factories. Many of the State Governments which includes states like Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra have also joined the bandwagon and have declared the respective Biofuel policies for their states and are promoting Jatropha cultivation in a big way. The governments want to mobilize large number of stakeholders including individuals, communities, entrepreneurs, oil companies, business, industry and the financial sector.

The instrument to promote non edible oil is hoped to be the buy back arrangements with oil companies to be put in place and mandatory use of bio-diesel blends. The Jatropha program is to be combined with other programs of the Ministry of Rural Development to attract growers, entrepreneurs and financial institutions so that a “self sustaining program of expansion takes off on its own with the government playing the role of a “facilitator”. As per the policy the rural community will have the first right of access to the oil for its own use.

Companies Involved

Godrej Agrovet Ltd: Godrej has invested over Rs 5.0 billion, for jatropha and palm oil cultivation in the states of Gujarat and Mizoram. The company would cultivate jatropha or palm oil according to the nature of the waste land in these states. According to industry sources, Godrej Agrovet had invested Rupees 2.5 billion for bio-fuel plant cultivation along with the palm oil processing and plant cultivation project in Gujarat while it would invest Rs 2.5 billion for both jatropha and palm oil cultivation in Mizoram. Godrej would be cultivating both jatropha and palm oil in an area over 10,000 acres in Mizoram as per the fertility of the land. The company is also in the process of setting up mills in Walia (Gujarat) at an estimated cost of $ 10 million.

Tata Motors: Tata motors in collaboration with Indian Oil is running 50 of their staff buses on biofuels. They are satisfied with the experimentation and are planning to get into large scale production of biofuels.

Indian Oil Corporation - Indian Oil Corporation has developed a process that would convert vegetable oil into bio-diesel while giving out by-products such as glycerin (which can be used by pharma companies) and oil cake, which is a good fertilizer. Ten per cent of bio-diesel was being blended for the pilot program. Indian Oil Corporation has even filed a patent for the process. Jatropha plantation on 40 hectares had been undertaken last year, and 30 hectares would be brought under Jatropha cultivation in 2007

Clean cities - Biodiesel India Limited is an Indian Public Limited Company in the process of setting up a Large State of Art Biodiesel Production Plant in India. The Company is on schedule to go full scale Commercial Production by July, 2007. Clean cities Biodiesel India Limited is setting up a Two hundred fifty thousand Tons per annum Biodiesel plant in Visakhapatnam SEZ, Andhra Pradesh.

Kochi Refineries Ltd (KRL) - is setting up a pilot plant with a US firm to extract biodiesel from rubber seed oil. An R&D exercise, the company proposed to look at the feasibility of the project and would initially have a pilot plant set up with a daily capacity of 100 liters. The company has initiated studies into the availability of rubber seed oil from neighboring Tamil Nadu, especially from the Nagercoil belt.

Biohealthcare Pvt. Ltd- It is a Pune based company, setting up a refinery, with a capacity to process 5,000 liters biodiesel per day from Jatropha oil. The refinery will also produce 1 MW power from the oil cake, apart from natural gas which will be used to run the power plant.

The Southern Online Biotechnologies Limited- It is setting up a bio-diesel project in Andhra Pradesh and has signed several MOUs with several government bodies and non-governmental organizations, for procuring raw material like Pongamia Pinnata (Karanja or Kanuga) and Jatropha seed. The oil extracted from this seed is used to produce bio-diesel. The company is setting up the bio-diesel project at an estimated cost of Rs 150 million at Choutuppal in Andhra Pradesh, with technology from a German company, Lurgi. The plant capacity is 30 tons per day or 10,000 tons per annum. It would require around 100 tons of seeds per day. The annual requirement of seeds is around 32,000 tons. As the current availability of seeds in the state is less than 4,000 tons, company will use other raw materials like acid oils, distilled fatty acids, animal fatty acids and non-edible vegetable oils like neem, rice bran etc.

Jain Irrigation System Ltd- has plans to set up a Rs 480 million large-scale commercial bio-diesel plant, with a capacity of 150,000 tons per day in Chattisgarh by 2008. R&D work is being carried out in 3 tonnes per day biodiesel pilot plant at Jalgaon, built at a cost of Rs 5 million. This will be followed by another bio-diesel plant with a capacity of 10 tons per day at Jalgaon.

Natural Bioenergy Limited- It is setting up an integrated biodiesel facility in Andhra Pradesh. The 300 tons per day biodiesel plant will come up in the port town of Kakinada at an estimated cost of Rupees 1.4 billion and would be a 100 per cent export-oriented unit. It is now going in for Backward Integration with Jatropha Plantation.

Reliance Industries limited – Reliance is entering the bio-fuel segment in a big way. To begin with, the company has earmarked 200 acres of land at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to cultivate jatropha, which can yield high quality bio-diesel. The area of cultivation will be increased to many thousands of acres depending on the progress of the project. The project is being implemented by Reliance Life Sciences, a subsidiary of RIL. They are also starting their project in Navi Mumbai.

Given below is their job advertisement and profile issued by Reliance for the post of Deputy manager and Executives for their Navi Mumbai project

DALC Role Profiles

Job Title:

Name of Incumbent:

Job Title of Superior:

Name of Superior:

Dy. Manager

GM (FA)

Org. Unit : Farm Advocacy

(Team/Department)

Location:

Global Function:

Multi Country Function:

Single Country Function: India

QUANTITATIVE INFORMATION:

No. of subordinates:

Budgetary responsibility:

(cost/turnover/investment p. a)

Asset responsibility:

(Value of plant, Stock etc)

Other related measures (define)

4 Execs, 20 RRP’s and 100 RKM’s

Rs. 95.66 Lakh’s

LIST OF DIRECT REPORTS (FUNCTIONS):

Mark ‘A’ for Functional/ ‘B’ for Administrative

Execs (A & B)

RRP’s and RKM’s (A & B)

REQUIREMENTS OF POSITIONS

Qualification:

(Min.)

Experience:

(No. of yrs)

PG in Rural Devt/ Rural Mgt/ Forest Mgt/Agri/ Horti/ etc MBA Degree with relevant work experience

5-8 years Experience in related fields. Experience of working with farmers will be an added advantage

% Occup.

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES/OVERALL RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE POSITION

(Mark approximate occupation time in %)

COMPETENCIES REQUIRED FOR POSITION:

30%

20%

Business development

• Establish Jatropha crops across 10,000 Ha in first five years

• Ensure sustenance of crops through acceptable value propositions to farmers

• Assure supply of seeds from the plantations to procurement team

• Overall in-charge for administrative, HR, information & development functions in Cluster

• Provide critical inputs for effective decision making pertaining to Farm Advocacy

Systems & Processes

• Implement standard formats & designs for maintaining data base at cluster

• Administer the 2 exec’s work in ones cluster

• Recruitment & orientation of RRRPs

• Identification of RKMs and ensuring sustained participation

• Participate & develop farmer’s institution building process

• Implement systems for sustaining village level institutions

• Implement mechanisms and appropriate processes for information flow critical to decision making (real time)

• Development response systems pertaining to specific needs of villages

• Carry out various studies & researches as & when required by FA team

Strategic Communication

• Implement internal & external communication systems

• Information dissemination in real time

• Representation in local forums

• Will generate and provide reports on qualitative and quantitative parameters

• Identify anomalies in data and seek regular redress

• Provides critical inputs at all levels of decision making for the development of business & allied activities

Leadership

• Show hands on working of FA plan & develop the team of 2 execs as effective Cluster Coordinators

• Develop & implement business plan meeting specific requirements

• Enhancing value proposition for farmers for Reliance Social Equity

• Provide innovative and simpler methods ensuring quality responses

• Identify specific areas of data management for better decision making, cost optimization & business development in cluster

CONTACTS:

Internal:

Cluster Team

FA Group

External:

Collaborating organization/s

Local Govt. Departments

Local Farmer Associations

Financial institutions

1. Proven record of achieving targets within the time lines

2. Proven record of networking, motivational & convincing skills

3. Ability & experience of managing team

4. Working experience at Grass root level

5. Experience in working with farmers/ farming extension works/ Farmer Groups/ SHGs etc.

6. A team player

7. Experience in imparting trainings to farmers & field level functionaries

8. Fair knowledge of data collection, compilation & analysis

9. Working Knowledge of computers (MS Office, internet etc.)

10. Proficiency in Hindi & English with working knowledge in either Telugu, Marathi or Gujarati

11. Experience in Institution Building Activities like formation of SHGs/ Groups and training.

Emami group is planning to set up a bio-diesel plant at Haldia, at cost of Rs 1.5 billion. This will be the first large bio-diesel project undertaken in the organized sector in West Bengal, and would initially use palm oil as basic raw-material instead of jatropha. Its capacity would be one lakh tonne per annum and commercial production is expected to begin by early 2008.

Several smaller Indian companies are already working towards developing bio-diesel. Companies like Nandan Bioagro and Labland Biotech have tied up with British Oil Company D1 Oils to produce jatropha and trade in it. The company will encourage hundreds of farmers to cultivate the crop under an arrangement with the company.

British Petroleum and the Japanese car manufacturer, Toyota, also want to cultivate 16,000 hectares of jatropha in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

The Germany based manufacturer, Lurgi, and the Indian Company, Chemical Construction International, have constructed a biodiesel system with an annual capacity of 10,000 tonnes for € 3 million in Andhra Pradesh. (A Green oil for the World, Sun and Wind Energy, Issue 1/2007, Bielefeld, Germany, p156)

Promotion of Jatropha cultivation is supposed to decrease the dependence of India on fossil fuels, as India stands 6^th in terms of energy demand in the world. It can diversify the energy supply and increase our energy security. The growth in transport activity is an issue of concern for the environment. India will soon be one of the top five carbon emitting countries of the world with an average annual emission of 3.2%.

The same companies that have controlled the fossil fuel economy are now seeking to control the biofuel economy, robbing the poor of food, land and energy.

D1 Oils Plc

D1 oils is the world’s largest commercial jatropha cultivator. It is targeting around 3.5 lakh hectares of jatropha plantations across India during the next four years, besides plans to invest in the setting up of downstream extraction units and necessary supply chain services in the country. The company, which recently entered into a partnership with British Petroleum, expects to start producing up to 1,000 tonnes of crude jatropha oil in the country by 2008. According to CEO of D1 Oils India Pvt Ltd, Mr Samiran Das, “India would definitely be among the top three countries for D1 in terms of jatropha plantations going forward,” (Businessline, November 2007). Globally, D1 Oils plans to cultivate one million hectares of jatropha, spread across mainly India, Southern Africa, South East Asia, China and Australia, by the year 2011. According to Dr Samiran Das, D1 Oils’ plantations in India have crossed 89,000 hectares by 2007 and the company plans to increase this to one lakh hectares by the end of the current planting season. D1 India is currently cultivating jatropha in Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and has joint ventures with tea firm, Williamson Magor, in the North-East and liquor company, Mohan Breweries, in the South to process and market bio-diesel from jatropha oilseeds produced by the farmers. The company plans to set-up downstream extraction units and refineries over the next couple of years in India. The company’s first extraction unit is expected to come up in South India, along with the requisite supply chain and network of downstream services. The company’s first extraction unit is expected to come up in South India, along with the requisite supply chain and network of downstream services.

Labland Biotech has tied up with British oil company D1 Oils to produce jatropha and trade in it. The company will encourage hundreds of farmers to cultivate the crop under an arrangement with the company. Besides India, D1’s jatropha plantations are located in Saudi Arabia, Cambodia, Ghana, Indonesia, Philippines, China, Zambia, South Africa and Swaziland.

D1’s Biopiracy

D1 has also been involved in Biopiracy in Jatropha, when they hired Dr Sunil Puri, who was the head of Department of Forestry at the Indira Gandhi Agricultural University (IGAU) in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. He arranged for the removal of elite varieties of jatropha from the University to D1's nearby farm. These varieties are considered to have high oil content and disease and drought resistance qualities. High quality Pendra variety has also been stolen. D1 is said to have cultivated it in a form house near Raipur taken on lease. Dr Puri, was assigned two projects on jatropha in 2002-2003. The studies found that Chhattisgarh’s Pendra and Surguja regions had high yielding variety of the plant.

A few weeks after Dr Puri left the University, he joined the company as technical director of D1’s India operations without even submitting his resignation to the University. An inquiry committee was set up by State Government with Mr Pankaj Divedi, Agriculture produce commissioner, Government of Chhattisgarh (President), Mr. K.Subramanian, Secretary, Forest department, Government of Chhattisgarh and Sanket Thakur, member, board of management in IGAU. On December 8, 2005, the enquiry committee accompanied by the police raided Puri’s house and seized seeds of 43 accessions of jatropha germplasm. Another raid at the research farm of D1 in Panchdeori village, about 25 km from Raipur, yielded 1,540 plants of 28 accessions. All the plants seized had the accession and tag numbers of IGAU. The report of the Government inquiry concluded that both the scientist and D1, by accepting the plants without the necessary authority, had breached India's new biodiversity laws, designed to protect the country's bio resources from foreign exploitation. Through Dr. Puri, D1 had illegally taken 18 varieties of jatropha from the University collection. Dr Puri and D1 have exploited Indian biological resources without ensuring fair compensation to their country of origin thereby leading to Biopiracy. The Indian government's National Biodiversity Authority has blocked D1's application to do research on jatropha in India because of the case.

It is strange that the attempts at biopiracy are happening frequently in the Indira Gandhi Agricultural University (IGAU). In 2004 Syngenta a Swiss MNC tried to snatch the germplasm of twenty thousand rice varieties of Chhattisgarh. These were the varieties collected by Dr.R H Richharia during his work at MP Rice Research Institute. Those varieties are kept with IGAU, Raipur. Luckily the information leaked out before finalization of the deal.

When India enacted the Biological Diversity Act in 2002, it made it mandatory for all foreign entities (individual, corporate, organisation or individual) to seek the permission of the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) before accessing the country’s biodiversity. So if a plant, animal, or their part, or traditional knowledge associated needed to be researched upon, commercially utilised or patented, it could not be done without permission. The three objectives of the legislation are conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits; drawn from the international Convention on Biological Diversity. So when D1 Oils India Ltd, proposed to access Jatropha curacas plantations in India, they needed to abide by the provisions of the above legislation. As per the information available in the agenda notes and minutes of the NBA meetings available on their Web site, D1 applied to the NBA in February 2006 with the intention of converting vegetable oil into bio-diesel to the standards stipulated by the European Union.

At this point the Government has to make sure that there are enough regulatory mechanisms available so that companies would not be freely able to collect and commercially exploit jatropha curacas.

The Biological Diversity Act, 2002 has the following salient features: -

i. to regulate access to biological resources of the country with the purpose of securing equitable share in benefits arising out of the use of biological resources; and associated knowledge relating to biological resources.

ii. To conserve and sustainably use biological diversity.

iii. to respect and protect knowledge of local communities related to biodiversity

iv. to secure sharing of benefits with local people as conservers of biological resources and holders of knowledge and information relating to the use of biological resources

v. Conservation and development of areas of importance from the standpoint of biological diversity by declaring them as biological diversity heritage sites.

vi. Protection and rehabilitation of threatened species

vii. Involvement of institutions of state governments in the broad scheme of the implementation of the Biological Diversity Act through constitution of committees.

As per the law it becomes necessary that if a research institution or private corporation is seeking to access germ-plasm from captivity or from wild, people, especially from the area, need to know how much and why.

BLOCKADE OF D1 OILS: ANTI AGROFUEL DEMONSTRATION IN UK

Protestors from No Agrofuels UK blockaded DI oils refinery and offices this morning to raise awareness of the detrimental impact of agrofuels. The protest was timed to coincide with the national Biofuels Conference in Newark.

18 Protestors chained the 3 gates to the refinery shut and 2 protestors were D-locked to the main gates. No vehicles were able to enter or leave the site and all work appeared to have been stopped.

Several banners were tied over the gates including "No Agrofuels, Land 4 People, Food, Biodiversity" and "Climate Change Profiteers"

Agrofuels (fuels produced from purposely and intensively grown crops) are not the green solution. They result in deforestation of tropical rainforests and burning of peatlands, which increase carbon in the atmosphere. Studies have shown that when you include energy used to grow and produce the fuels including chemical production and transportation they use more energy then oil based fuels.

Agrofuels also cause food insecurity by reducing land available to grow food and increasing food prices. They result in land dispossession as people in Africa, Asia and South America are forced off their land to enable crops to be grown for the fuel of Europe and the USA. In Colombia there have been human rights abuses to gain control of the land.

D1 is one of the biggest traders worldwide of palm oil and oil seed rape. They have interests in India, Indonesia, China, South Africa, Zambia, Swaziland, El Salvador and are soon planning to get into Brazil and several otehr African countries. They are directly responsible for land dispossession, food insecurity and increasing poverty, they are not the providing the solution to our climate crisis, the only solution to climate change is a reduction in energy rather then exploiting the biodiversity, people and land of the Global South.

Source: www.indymedia.org

D1 have many interests besides jatropha. The Company's operations cover agronomy, refining and trading. It designs, builds, owns, operates and markets biodiesel refineries. D1 Oils plc also sources, transports and trades seeds and seedlings, seedcake, crude vegetable oils and biodiesel. The Company's operations cover agronomy, refining and trading. It designs, builds, owns, operates and markets biodiesel refineries. D1 Oils plc also sources, transports and trades seeds and seedlings, seedcake, crude vegetable oils and biodiesel. Its wholly owned subsidiaries include D1 Oils Trading Limited, D1 Oil Subsidiary Limited, D1 (UK) Limited, D1 Oils Asia Pacific Inc, D1 Oils Ghana (PTY) Limited, D1 Oils India Pvt Limited, D1 Oils Africa (PTY) Limited, D1 Oils Madagascar Limited, D1 Oils Zambia Limited and D1 Oils Asia Pacific PTE Limited. All the subsidiaries are engaged in biodiesel trading, except for the subsidiary in Africa, which was inactive during the year 2006. As of 2006, the Company was involved in the scientific and commercial development of jatropha as a commercial energy crop. Its headquarters is in Middlesbrough, the United Kingdom.

Jatropha Subsidy

U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has observed that the soaring cost of grains and cereals was becoming "a major global concern" and the UN world Food programme has also announced that they will have to start rationing their Food supplies. These two pronouncements by the world bodies reflects the impact shortage of food can have over the globe. India is also not far behind in this food crisis. This is clearly evident from the soaring food prices in the country. It is facing a shortage of Oilseeds, pulses, rice and wheat. As per the Economic survey 2007-08 the Food grain stock stood at 19.2 million tonnes as on January 1, 2008, comprising 11.5 million tones of rice and 7.7 million tonnes of wheat, respectively. This stock is 4% lower than the buffer norm of 20 Million tonnes. While wheat stock of 7.7 million tonnes is 500,000 tonnes lower than the required norm, the rice stock stood at 11.5 million tonnes that is 300,000 tonnes lower than the norm.

The Central Government has launched a credit-linked subsidy programme to promote the commercial cultivation of tree-borne oilseeds with an objective to increasing forest cover in the wasteland in 2004. The scheme was to be implemented by the Union Ministry of Agriculture, through the National Oilseeds and Vegetable Oil Development Board (NOVOD), under the 10th Five Year Plan till March 2007 to reduce the outflow of foreign exchange in respect of import of edible oil and also to “provide income-generating activities for farmers”. The Centre will provide the subsidy of 30 per cent on the total investment made by the identified beneficiary in developing the tree-borne oilseed plantation. The nationalised banks will provide 50 per cent cost of the project as loan and the beneficiaries have to invest the remaining 20 per cent as their contribution. But according to Mr Sandeep Chaturvedi, President, Biodiesel Association of India (BDAI) the 30% subsidy for jatropha plantation that was made available through NOVOD has not been disbursed till now. But as per the policy the board will release the subsidy amount only after completion of successful implementation of the project.

Biodiesel Association of India (BDAI) has asked the Centre to categorise biodiesel as “declared goods” with uniform rate of tax in all states in the country. The association has called for encouraging 20% blending of biodiesel, exemption of sales tax on the biodiesel component used in the blend and jatropha seeds to be given the status of energy seeds. The association is of the view that the rate of Rs 26.50 a litre did not even meet the cost of production of biodiesel and they also want income tax exemption under section 80-1B.

The centre has constituted a Group of ministers (GoM) in May 2007, under the chairmanship of the agricultural minister Mr Sharad pawar to frame a biofuel policy to address the issues like minimum support price for the farmers growing jatropha and other oil bearing seeds. The ministers of rural Development and Petroleum are also a part of the GoM. However, the GoM failed to reach a consensus on the issue and the widely expected policy scheduled to be ready by the end of January 2008 is delayed.

It is to be noted that always agricultural subsidies seem to be the special targets of the mainline economists because the World Trade organization (WTO) and the World Bank says so. Subsidies that the agricultural farmers of India receive are dubbed as trade distorting, while the subsidy that is being given to the companies to make biofuel to run the cars of the rich are considered to be encouraging for trade. Whether it is land grab for industrial projects and mining projects or the creation of Special economic zones (SEZ) the government is doling out huge subsidies. The providing of subsidies for the biofuel companies is simply to benefit the rich and the elite, while they cut into the food supply of the poor, threatening the food security and resulting in price rise. No questions are being asked about the unwanted financial support to the companies, which otherwise are resourceful enough to run their business. It is note worthy that these subsidies are given to those companies who use the country’s natural resources like Land and water.

JATROPHA FOR LOCAL ENERGY NEEDS: THE FALSE PROMISE

While local village energy is the justification given for setting up large scale, centralized, industrial plants for biodiesel from jatropha the centralization and corporate control ensures that the oil will flow to cities, not to the villages, it will flow to run cars while animals and people starve.

The planning commission in its approach draft to the 11^th five year plan has raised concerns regarding the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of Jatropha cultivation. To quote, “ The survival of pastoralism is crucial for sustainable land use. Besides conserving biodiversity it is a means of producing food in drylands without depleting groundwater resources. However, there are many constraints on expansion in this area. Grazing permits are denied in traditional grazing sites that have been converted to protected areas/wildlife sanctuaries, national park, Joint Forest management programme. Original pasturelands or stipulated animal drinking water pots are encroached upon or used for other purposes. Biodiesel (Jatropha) planting is promoted through state agencies without seeing all the consequences such as blocking the migration route of animals and encroaching upon herd passing pathways”[4].

Going by our studies in Chhattisgarh, Vidarbha and Rajasthan , it is no surprise that a body like Planning Commission which has once encouraged the Jatropha cultivation in a big manner has now expressed its apprehensions about the issue. Jatropha cultivation in Vidarbha is in fact a pointer that the competition for land between biodiesel crops and food crops are slowly catching up.

India is following a monocrop-based cultivation model for Jatropha. Indiscriminate use of Jatropha crop as the only biofuel crop in India not only harms the ecology and the agriculture but also the interest of the farmers who grow it. There are a lot of risk factors for the farmers engaged in Jatropha cultivation. The seeds of Jatropha which are toxic can be used only to make bio diesel. If there is not enough demand from the market and if the companies do not buy the seeds from the farmers, they will end up in a loss. Countries in Europe, Latin America and East Asia also grow pongamia, soyabean, palmoil, neem rubber and castor from which the oil can be extracted. If this oil is not used for meeting the automobile demand, it can be used for other purposes, unlike Jatropha.

Even though rural development is considered to be one of the objectives of switching towards Jatropha cultivation, there is little evidence of fuel made from Jatropha for meeting the rural energy demand.

The main objective behind the greater use of biofuels is to increase the fuel availability in the country and to decrease the import bills. Straight vegetable Oil extracted from Jatropha , without being put through esterification process can be used in running the motors and tractors in villages.

The government till now has not come out with a clear policy on biofuel. There are too many ministries involved in the national mission for biofuels with ministry of Rural development as the nodal ministry. One important point that is to be noted here is that there are 20 collection points of Indian Oil Corporation in different parts of the country that were supposed to receive biofuels and till now no centre is reported to have received anything.

The National biofuel policy which is to be declared soon by the government of India has to make it very clear about India’s priorities in terms of the food crops vs biofuel crops. Fears that the burgeoning biofuel industry may eat the world's lunch as farmers resort to mono cropping and send their produce to refineries are real[5] and the activists have expressed this concern from time to time. Precedence for biofuel crops over food crops can never be given as it will destroy the country’s food security. The national policy should lay down clear guidelines for the selection of land for Jatropha cultivation and anyone company/organization violating this should be dealt severely. The cultivation of raw materials for biofuels at the cost of food crops should be stopped. A country like India should make a clear decision about its priorities.

Enclosure of the Commons : Land Grab through Jatropha

According to the national mission for biofuels, the government plans to use 11 million hectares of” wasteland” for Jatropha cultivation. But “wasteland” as such is not defined. According to Rabo-bank and CII report on biodiesel published in May 2007 , Jatropha tree can grow in arid to semi arid conditions It can withstand long periods of drought and can also be grown on stony and shallow soil[6]. Dr H.M Behl (Advior D1 Oils India Pvt Limited and Former Scientist, CSIR) says “it is not necessary that Jatropha should grow in wastelands, it can happen that they may never grow at all”. It can grow on any kind of land. “ but Jatropha would love to grow on good fertile land also”. He cites the example of Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh, which are supposed to be cold areas where Jatropha grows very well.

Like any other crop Jatropha also likes to grow on good fertile land. How much yield the government and the companies are expecting to get out of Jatropha being grown on wastelands is a big question mark. Each state has its own categorization of wasteland and all the wastelands are not accessible. So the people involved tend to cultivate Jatropha in those lands which are common lands and which are easily accessible.

In all the states it is this commonland, disguised as wastelands, which the Government and industry have been using for the cultivation of Jatropha. This “Wasteland” for the Governments was thus only a revenue category and not an ecological one.

Increased Jatropha cultivation is supposed to have the potential to serve as a source of substantial employment[7] and provide a solution for the long standing poverty of the country. The first phase of the National Biofuel mission demonstration project is expected to generate employment of 126.7 million person days in plantation by 2007. However, the destruction of livelihood by diverting land from local needs of fodder, fuel and food to liquid fuel for cars in not assessed.

Local energy needs decentralized energy systems. Decentralisation needs diversity, not monocultures. India has a large diversity of non-edible oil seeds which have been used for centuries. They are used for domestic lighting, the oil cakes goes to animals or as fertilizers to the soil. Biodiversity with multifunctional uses is the best source of local energy supply which is complimentary and not competitive with food supply. The conservation, propagation and sustainable use of biodiversity for food security and energy security of local communities needs local decision making. This is why the rights of the gram sabha must be strengthened, not undermined by government policies or laws.

In order to assess the social and ecological impact of Jatropha cultivation on rural communities and rural ecosystems, Navdanya carried out field surveys in 3 states- Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. The results of the case study are presented in chapter 4.

Village Commons are not Wastelands

When the British established their rule in India, it was estimated that between one-third to one-half of the total area of Bengal Province alone was ‘waste’. The colonial concept of wastelands was not an assessment of the biological productivity of land but of its revenue generating capacity. ‘Wasteland’ which did not yield any revenue because it was uncultivated. Such wastelands included the forest districts of Chittagong, Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Chota Nagpur and Assam, the vast trail of forest lands near the mouth and delta of the Hooghly and other rivers, known as Sunderban. These lands were taken over by the British government and leased to cultivators to turn them into revenue generating lands. In the Gangetic plains, ‘wastelands’ were allotted to an adjacent village, but in the dense forest regions of Dehradun, Mirzapur, etc, the forest tracts were retained as ‘Government Waste’. In Punjab, 200 percent of the cultivated area of a village was categorized as village waste. These lands were maintained partly as forest and grazing lands and partly for the extension of cultivation. In the Rayatwari areas of Bombay there were local forms of landholding, and local methods of cultivation, which always involved a path of wood and grass bearing land being attached to each cultivated landholding. In 1861, under the vice royalty of Lord Canning, wasteland rules were formulated. As Baden Powell records “The value of state forests – to be made out of the best and most usefully situated wooded and grass lands – was not even recognized, and the occupation of the waste by capitalists and settlers was alone discussed”. It was only after the late nineteenth century when forests also became a source of revenue that state forests were no longer called waste. Village forests and grazing lands however continued to be categorized as wastelands because they were not sources of revenue for the state, even though they were vital fuel and fodder resources for the agrarian economy.

The colonial category of ‘wastelands’ was thus a revenue category, not an ecological category. Colonial policy did, however, also create the ecological category of ‘wasted lands’, which had lost their biological productivity because of societal and governmental action and inaction. These wasted lands lay in areas demarcated as reserved forests, those owned privately by individuals and used for agriculture, and common lands shared by communities for fuel and fodder supplies.

As Baxi notes, ‘development of wastelands or policies addressed to it do no more than reverse social and public policy and action which had the result of wasting lands in earlier times.’ However, this is not what the government wasteland development policy has turned out to be. This policy was given a boost in 1985 when the National Wasteland Development Board was set up. Wasteland development generated conflicts because it concentrated on the afforestation of the revenue category of wastelands (i.e. commons) and threatened the customary rights of villagers to use forest produce.

In a nation-wide study covering districts in dry tropical regions spread over seven states, Jodha observed that the most basic needs of fuel, fodder etc. of the poor throughout India continue to be satisfied from common property resources or CPR’s[8].

Table showing Indicators of Rural Households’ Dependence on CPRs in the Study Villages in Dry Areas of Seven States of India

	Andhra Pradesh		Gujarat		Karnataka		Madhya Pradesh		Maharashtra		Rajasthan		Tamil Nadu
Category of households	Poor	Others	Poor	Others	Poor	Others	Poor	Others	Poor	Others	Poor	Others	Poor	Others
No. of households	65	41	84	62	64	33	98	72	102	64	72	64	48	23
Percent households collecting CPR products
Food items	95	10	96	16	84	14	100	18	98	13	100	23	93	12
Fuel, fodder, fibre	99	15	100	19	100	18	100	11	100	16	100	28	100	17
Timber, silt etc	37	59	29	83	41	78	21	84	19	90	31	89	92	42
Per household average number of
CPR based activities	4	2	5	2	5	3	6	3	3	2	5	2	4	3

Note: Based on filed survey during 1983-85

Poor households include agricultural labourers and small farms (2 hectares of dry land equivalent) households. Others include large farm households only.

Activities included product collection, grazing, processing and handicrafts based on CPR products and marketing of CPR products. Items included fuel, fodder, various wild fruits and flower, roots, leaves and skin of plants and trees, honey, gum, fish, small game, silt and clay etc.( Source Jodha 1986)

A number of factors have led to the degradation of commons, in particular to the decay of community norms in maintaining these commons. The erosion of systems of social control in the process of modernization and development has led to Hardin’s model of degradation of commons in most regions.

Village commons have been a historical reality in India. Relics of village woodlots or roadside plantations can still be easily found. In the traditional village, private and unequal landholdings existed side by side with common and equally shared resources. Thus, while self-interest might guide a landlord’s use of his own land, the use of common resources would even for the private landlord be guided by community norms.

This was possible for two reasons. The first is rooted in the nature of community organization. A community is a social organization based on commonly accepted norms and values, which provide the organizing principles and control mechanisms for its members. A shared resource can be managed communally through the implicit acceptance on the part of all the members of the community of a commonly shared norm for the use of resources. Even while subscribing to one set of norms in the context of commonly owned resources, it is possible for members of a village to subscribe to individualistic, class dominated norms when it comes to privately owned resources.

The second reason why commons could be maintained despite socio-economic inequalities was the self-sufficient nature of the traditional village economy. That self-sufficiency prevented individuals from undermining community action. Thus, for example, in a traditional coastal fishing village with its own socio-economic hierarchies, the exploitation of common resources (like fish in the ocean) was guided by rigid controls to which everyone was subjected. The exploitation of the poorer sections of the village took place on the shore when the catch was distributed on the basis of private ownership. However, the most powerful groups were prevented from over-exploiting the resources of the sea. Therein lies the primary reason why India’s marine ecosystems were maintained over the centuries.

The conservation of village woodlots was guaranteed through similar mechanisms, until the simultaneous operation of individual and community obligations was rendered impossible through the opening up of the village economy to large urban and industrial markets. By and large, access to the bigger markets was, and still is possible only for the most privileged members of the community, through easy access to educational bureaucratic and financial institutions. This initiated a process whereby the rich were no longer subject to traditional social norms and this in turn led to the breakdown of the community. In the case of marine resources, the introduction of mechanized trawlers (through international and local funding used mainly by the local rich), led to the violation of traditional community norms and influenced the manner in which marine resources were exploited. Similarly, the introduction of new agricultural techniques that were adopted only by the rich farmers, made the village elite less dependent on local resources (for example, chemical fertilizer in place of green manure). Under such circumstances, the participation of wealthy villagers in community efforts to maintain local resources was reduced, leading ultimately to the slow decay of those community norms, which had previously governed the use of local resources.

History of the legal recognition of collective rights in India [9]

·         Community control of common resources was a historic reality in pre-colonial India. Tribal, village communities and forest dwellers possessed occupancy rights over the land, forest, pastures, water resources and its procedure.

·         With the advent of British rule, traditional norms of community control of the commons began to erode through the implementation of policies of commercialization and privatization of common property resources.

·         Not all regions within India succumbed to the colonial powers. Today, community control over common resources is still a living tradition in many parts of India, having its origin in the pre colonial period

·         Indian common law jurisprudence has not, until recently, been recognized in formal law.

·         The provisions of the Panchayats extension of the scheduled areas act came into effect in December 1996. This act signifies a radical shift in the direction of our common law jurisprudence. It heralds the beginning of the recovery of the commons by envisaging village communities as being the basic units of the self governing system

·         Gram sabhas have been granted legal recognition as communities to exercise traditional management practices of their commons and its resources, resolve disputes, manage minor forest produce, enforce prohibitions, restore unlawfully alienated lands, and safeguard and preserve the cultural traditions and customs of the people.

Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act , 1996[10] (PESA)

The provision of the panchayats Act 1996 has come into effect on December 24, 1996. This act extends to the panchayats of the tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan with the intention to enable tribal societies to control over their destiny to preserve and control their traditional rights over natural resources. The act has recognized their control over the common lands and other common property resources. The community has been accorded the formal status of gram sabha and has been endowed with special powers. The power includes management of community resources, resolution of disputes, approvals of plans and programs and also mandatory consultation before the acquisition of land.

As per the Exceptions and modifications to Part IX of the Constitution, notwithstanding anything contained under Part IX of the Constitution, the Legislature of a State shall not make any law under that Part which is inconsistent with any of the following features, namely: -

a) a State legislation on the Panchayats that may be made shall be in consonance with the customary law, social and religious practices and traditional management practices of community resources;

b) a village shall ordinarily consist of a habitation or a group of habitations or a hamlet or a group of hamlets comprising a community and managing its affairs in accordance with traditions and customs

Jatropha plantations are being promoted in contravention of the PESA act, and the right it guarantees to the local Gram Sabha. The enclosures of the village commons through Jatropha plantations for biofuels is the latest in the series of attempts to transfer the resources of the poor to the rich and of the community to the state and corporations.

Chapter 4

CASE STUDIES OF JATROPHA PLANTATIONS

Navdanya has carried out field studies of the impact of jatropha plantations for industrial biofuels in three different states of India - Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan because they are providing strong legal and policy level support for the cultivation of Jatropha plantations.

4.1 Chhattisgarh

Figure 1: Location of Chhattisgarh in India

Chhattisgarh as a newly formed state of India came into being in November 2000. The state has a tribal population of 32.5%. 12% of India’s forests are in Chhattisgarh and 44% of the state’s land is under the forest cover. It is one of the richest states in mineral resources.

Chhattiagarh is also a centre of diversity of the Indica rices. Eminent rice expert Dr Richaria estimated that in the pre Green Revolution days, India had 200, 000 rice varieties. In the rice conservation center he started in Raipur, he had collected 20, 000 varieties of rice from Chhattisgarh. The high level of biological and cultural diversity in Chhattisgarh implies that the promotion of industrial monocultures of Jatropha will have significant social and ecological impacts. It is in this Vavilov center of the Indica varieties of rice that jatropha plantations are being introduced on a very large scale.

Chhattisgarh biofuel policy

Chhattisgarh is one of the states in India that has got a biofuel policy. The Chhattisgarh government has decided to establish with effect from 26^th January 2005, a special authority known as Chhattisgarh Biofuel Development Authority (CBDA) for promotion of Biofuel in Chhattisgarh. The activities of the authority will be executed through coordinated efforts of the concerned departments of the state government. The CBDA aims to promote research and development facility for undertaking need based research and development. One of its other objectives is to improve rural income and women employment. The Forest Department, the Forest Corporation and the Horticulture Department are the agencies which are involved in cultivating Jatropha in village “wastelands” where the land belongs to the panchayat. The government aims to cultivate Jatropha in 200,000 hectares of land. Its aim was to increase the area of cultivation to 300,000 hectares by 2007.

As per the biofuel policy for the Chhattisgarh state the government plans to lease the 2,00,000 hectares of revenue land to companies/partnership firms and registered companies for cultivation of Jatropha and installing their own bio diesel plant.

According to R.K Chaturvedi, project officer of CBDA, “the government does not give out land in lease for private companies and we undertake Jatropha cultivation not for profit but to improve the social and economic condition of the people.” But there is a lot of discrepancy between what is in the policy and what is in practice.

Jatropha in common lands

Sunderkera village in Abhanpur block of Raipur district is 45 kilometres away from the city. President A.P.J Abdul Kalam visited the village on November 2006 to oversee the cultivation of Jatropha and had discussions with the farmers who had engaged themselves in cultivating the plant. But the truth is that there are no farmers in Sunderkhera village who are doing Jatropha cultivation on their own. In Sunderkhera Jatropha is being cultivated in village common lands by the forest department in an area of 40 hectares. Though the CBDA would like to call it as “wastelands”, according to the land utility it is common land of the villagers. One lakh plants were planted in 2005-006 and the forest department employed 140 people from the village at a daily wage of Rs 65 for 25 days. Tikandra sahoo, the village sarpanch says, “we have benefited in no way by the Jatropha cultivation. They asked for the panchayat land and we gave them land for the cultivation. We are kept in total darkness as to how they are going to use the plant once it starts yielding”.

Figure 2: sunderkera village, Abhanpur block

The use of the land and the resultant cultivation of Jatropha was a clear violation of the Panchayats Act 1996. The government has not at all recognized the right of the villagers to have control over the commons and they have not been taken into confidence before the cultivation has started happening.

What will be the role of villagers after the gestation period is over is not defined nor is the role of the local panchayat. The forest department officials have told the villagers that Jatropha does not need any water and it can grow without irrigation. According to the Rabobank-CII report although Jatropha can grow on wasteland with very little water and care the plant needs constant maintenance and inputs like fertilizers and irrigation to produce commercial scale yields. This is particularly vital in the first two to three years of the crop’s life cycle. [11]

There is just one caretaker for the entire 40 hectares of land. There is a small stream that flows around the land. There are merely two tube wells that are dug in the field, but there are no pipes to transport water to all the parts of the field.

Figure 3: 40 hectares and two taps

The plants are very badly maintained. It never receives regular supply of water and the people are made to believe that Jatropha is a species which can survive for days without any water.

The village of Sunderkera is otherwise a very prosperous village with rich paddy fields. Adjacent to the area where Jatropha is being cultivated there are large green tracts of paddy. The village has a population of 4000 with most of the population engaged in agriculture. The village is blessed with good fertile land with the so called “wastelands” under the ownership of the panchayat.

Apart from paddy or rice cultivation, the soil is also suitable to grow tomato, pulses, wheat and mustard. The farmers get water from the adjacent stream for their cultivation. The rows of Jatropha plants are cultivated in the common lands just next to these paddy fields.

The common lands were used by the cows and goats as a grazing land, but not any more. “the Forest Department has fortified the whole area and stopped our cattle from entering the field” says Dinakar, one of the villagers.

Figure 4: the green patches of paddy in sunderkera

“The government and the officials showed interest in the area only during the visit of the president of India”. Lakhs of rupees were spent on making the helipad for his helicopter to land. “The only positive outcome was that our roads have been repaired”, says the sarpanch Sahoo. The government’s argument of rural development and women’s empowerment is a complete farce as only 70 of the villagers got jobs for just 25 days.

In village Saragaon of Dharsima block, the area under Jatropha cultivation is 12 hectares. Here also it is the forest department which is undertaking the cultivation and 45 villagers were given work for 25 days at a daily wage of Rs 62. The land has been handed over to the forest department by the panchayat for planting Jatropha. The condition of the plants were as bad as in any other village, with absolutely no water being provided for the plants to grow well. There is no caretaker appointed to look after the plants and due to lack of attention the plants look dry, appears lifeless and are withering away.

Figure 5: The plants of prosperity?

There is no provision of water in the field and the plants are entirely dependent upon the rainfall for their sustenance. The villagers here also were made to believe the theory of the forest department that Jatropha does not need any water. More than half of the people in the village have their own land and during off-season they go out to Bhilai in search of jobs. None of the villagers benefited in any way by the Jatropha cultivation. They have lost their common lands and the cattle find it difficult to find land for grazing. Apart from rice, the other crops that are cultivated in the village are wheat and mustard. Nilgiri and shisham also grows here.

Figure 6: Trees in between the Jatropha plants

The village of Kodia is in block Dhamdha of Durg district. The cultivation is done by the Forest Department in an area of 25 hectares. Forty five people got jobs for one and a half months at a daily wage of Rs 60. The plants are badly maintained with nobody to take care of the plantations. “We are expecting the yield to come out in the next year,” says the panchayat secretary without taking into account the condition of the plants. Kodia was one village where the villagers used to depend upon the commonland for the collection of fuel wood. But now the entry is restricted.

In Chhattisgarh it is the commercial interest which rules the policy and profits are linked to utilisation and exploitation of the common land of the people, giving scant regard for their interests.

Figure 7:Lost grazing fields - a cow that has ‘intruded’ into the Jatropha field in kodia

Loss of agricultural Land

The tribals of Chhattisgarh are not just losing their commonlands but also their agricultural land.The Government of Chhattisgarh has issued notices to tribals in the villages of Mohami, Barnala, Bhaktapur, Chaprapara,Tatida, Kodinar, Mithunava, Amanala, Baheramuda, Chatapara, Olibagh, Kulwarikolan, Pasadal, Barili, Manchwanu, Sembipani, Jharna, Upabanda, Chureli, Amagar and Linipara to vacate the land in which they were engaged in farming. They were being threatened to vacate their agricultural land. Given the absence of Land titles to the tribals in Chhattisgarh, the Forest Department in many places is planting Jatropha in the agricultural land of the tribals claming that they are the forest land.

Santhoshi, from Daiharibagh village (predominantly Baiga tribes), Kota block of Bilaspur district said, " the forest department forcefully planted Jatropha on our paddy land. They told us if you don't allow us to plant jatropha you will go to jail. We have sent our plea petitions to the chief minister, District collector and BDO but of no avail. At last we had to uproot the jatropha plants that were planted in our agricultural land".

Dharam singh, from Pandripani village, from Kota block of Bilaspur village, said "the Gram Sabha in my village did not give the permission for the forest department to plant Jatrophas in our agricultural land. But they planted it by force and issued court notices to 10 people including me to vacate our agricultural land".

They have sent petitions to Block Development Officer(BDO), District Collector and the Chief minister explaining their plight. But they have received no response from them till date.

Instead of recognizing the rights of the tribals as required by the PESA Act of 1996 and the recognition of the Forest dwellers Rights Act of 2007, the government is using jatropha plantations to undo the constitutional safeguards that tribals have to their right to land and livelihood. Their land assets are being appropriated, tribal rights are being trampled upon and their biodiversity and livelihood are under threat. This process would exacerbate poverty and undermine sustainability

The Government should be regularising the land holdings of the tribal community of their traditionally occupied land, by implementing a new law recognizing their rights rather than promoting jatropha plantations. The Baiga tribals have been doing the cultivation in the land for more than forty years now and the Government cannot ask the tribals to vacate their land on which their very livelihood depends upon.

Figure 8: Santoshi and Dharam Singh who got notices from the Government to Vacate their Agricultural land for jatropha

The List of villages in Chhattisgarh affected by land conflicts because of Jatropha cultivation

No.	District	Region	Panchayat	Village
1	Jashpur	Patthalgaon	Khutapani	Khutapani
2			Jamjhor	Jamjhor
3			Rajaaama	Rajaaama
4			Pithaaama	Pithaaama
5			Maheshpur	Maheshpur
6			Khutapani	Jhimaki
7			Kokiyakhar	Kokiyakhar
8			Khutapani	Tangarjor
9			Buldega	Buldega
10			Sugajori	Sugajori
11			Bagmadha	Bagmadha
12			Kukurbhuka	Kukurbhuka
13			Surungpani	Surungpani
14			Bhelwan	Pataibhal
15			Jamtoli	Jamtoli
16			Bhelwan	Dagbandhi
17	Raigarh	Dharmjaygarh	Tejpur	Tejpur
18			Sisringa	Sisringa
19			Tejpur	Nanaijor
20			Jagdha	Sohanpur
21			Jagdha	Jagdha
22			Kamosindandh	Kamosindandh
23			Khamhar	Khamhar
24			Poriya	Poriya
25			Ruwaful	Ruwaful
26			Chalha	Chalha
27			Ruwaful	Kindha
28			Ruwaful	Dhawaidandh
29			Jaldega	Jaldega
30			Kuma	Kuma
31			Poriya	Raitarai
32			Mendharmal	Mendharmal
33			Aamapali	Aamapali
34			Darridih	Darridih
35			Darridih	Khalbora
36			Sisringa	Ganeshpur
37			Tejpur	Khekharanara
38			Tejpur	Gatinara
39

Chapter – 1