Agrofuels

The rush for ‘biofuels’ is already causing serious damage. Far from being sustainable, the spread of what are more accurately called ‘agrofuels’ – liquid fuels produced from biomass grown in large-scale monocultures – is compromising biodiversity and fuelling human rights violations.

As the industry expands, it is encouraging intensified, industrial agriculture, providing a new promotional vehicle for GM crops, and posing a serious threat to food sovereignty. The argument that these ‘biofuels’ will mitigate climate change is unproven – indeed, the destruction of rainforests, peatlands and other ecosystems to make way for agrofuel plantations may well accelerate global warming.

This document focuses on particular types of ‘biofuel’ which we prefer to call agrofuel because of the intensive, industrial way it is produced, generally as monocultures, often covering thousands of hectares, most often in the global South.