Global bioenergy potentials: A new approach using a model-based assessment of biomass flows and land demand in the food and agriculture sector 2030

Paper in proceeding, 2004

The aim of this study is to assess how the global bioenergy potential is influenced by different long-term development paths in the food and agriculture system. In a number of scenarios of the global food and agriculture system in 2030, we examine to what extent increases in livestock and crop productivity, and changes in human diets, may expand the bioenergy potential. The results from the scenarios indicate that if the recent projections of global agriculture made by the FAO come true, the prospects for bioenergy plantations will be less favorable. In our scenario depicting the FAO projections, it is estimated that total agricultural land area globally will expand from current 5.1 billion ha to approximately 5.4 billion ha in 2030, leaving little room for a major expansion of bioenergy plantations. However, if assuming somewhat higher annual increases of livestock productivity than in the FAO study – but still only slightly above the historical rates since 1960 – and a 20 percent substitution of ruminant meat with pig/poultry meat in human diets, agricultural land requirement may decrease to about 4.4 billion ha.