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On the usage of agricultural raw materials – energy or food? An assessment from an economics perspective
Author(s) -
Lenk Fabian,
Bröring Stefanie,
Herzog Philipp,
Leker Jens
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
biotechnology journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.144
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1860-7314
pISSN - 1860-6768
DOI - 10.1002/biot.200700153
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , agriculture , agricultural economics , natural resource economics , economics , microbiology and biotechnology , environmental economics , computer science , biology , ecology , artificial intelligence
Bioenergies are promoted across the globe as the answer for global warming and the chance to reduce dependency from fossil energy sources. Despite the fact that renewable energy sources offer the opportunity to reduce CO2 emission and present a chance to increase agricultural incomes, they also come along with some drawbacks that have been mostly neglected in the current discussion. This paper seeks to build a basis for discussing the impacts of the growing subsidization of bioenergy and the resulting usage competition of agricultural raw materials between foods and energy. To assess the usage competition and the subsidization of bioenergy, this article employs a welfare economics perspective associated with an emphasize on the construct of externalities. This will help to foster the discussion on the further subsidization of bioenergy, where funding for R&D on new ways of using non‐food raw materials ought to play a significant role.