Biomass for Energy and the Impacts on Food Security

In climate policies in the developed world the use of biomass as an energy source plays an important role Indications exist that these policies are affecting global food security In this chapter we compare the global demands for food, feed and energy in the near future We distinguish between developing countries, transition countries and the developed countries The first group of countries needs extra food for their growing population, the second one needs extra feed, since the increased incomes among their population lead to increased demand for animal products The developed countries require biomass to reduce the CO(2) emissions of their energy use On global scale the extra needs for biomass as a fuel (1,100 MT) turn out to be larger than the needs for food and feed (900 MT each) This huge demand for biomass from the energy system is likely to result in large instabilities on the international agricultural markets