Food or Fuel? The Biofuel Dilemma

The first-generation biofuels, primarily ethanol made from maize or sugar cane, or biodiesel made from vegetable oil were motivated by the novel goal of weaning the world off fossil fuels and reducing or mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

In the United States, Congress adopted extensive mandates and subsidies for corn-based ethanol in the late 1970s to get a biofuels industry off the ground. The Renewable Energy Directive (RED) adopted by the EU in 2009 set an objective, which demands 10% biofuels in road transport by 2020.

The arguments that created the economic, environmental and energy independence appeal of first-generation biofuels are diminishing rapidly and furiously.

US federal government's corn subsidies, which have encouraged farmers to produce maize for ethanol, began in the 1970s. In 2010, 40% of maize produced in the US was used for making ethanol. Moreover, even if America's entire corn crop were to be devoted to ethanol production, it would still only supply 4% of the country's oil consumption. There are numerous causes to the recent spikes in food prices in the US, but biofuels remain a significant piece of the puzzle.

A 2008 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal showed that increasing maize production to meet renewable fuels target would add to nitrogen pollution in the Gulf of Mexico by 10 to 34%. The study also revealed that a modern biofuel plant uses about 3 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of ethanol.

A study by Food First Information and Action Network International (FIAN International) estimates that over 60% of all large-scale land grabbing in more than 20 African countries, mainly by British and EU companies is intended for producing biofuels. Various instruments, including in the areas of trade, development cooperation and diplomacy, support the biofuel policy of the EU.

EU’s renewable energy policy encourages farmers in Indonesia to clear forests in order to grow crops for use as fuel in Europe. According to the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), carbon released from deforestation linked to biofuels could exceed carbon savings by 60% in 2018.  A report published in the Guardian in 2011 estimated that half of the 3.2 million hectares of biofuel land in Africa is linked to 11 UK companies. 

Biofuels came under sharp scrutiny when the IEEP showed that EU’s biofuels policy alone could push up oilseed prices up to 33%, maize up to 22%, sugar up t 21% and wheat by up to 10% by 2020. Claims that commercial production of Jatropha curcas – non-edible oil whose oil-rich seeds­ – avoids competition with food because it grows on marginal and arid land have been challenged. Profitable production of Jatropha needs water, fertilizer and pesticides, hence competing for the same resources needed to produce food.

The argument that ambitious biofuel targets are fueling high food prices and hunger is gaining credence. Biofuel production is now viewed as taking food from the plates of the poor and putting it into the fuel tanks of the wealthy. Consequently, many experts are now calling for countries, especially the EU, Britain and the US to scale back incentives and investments in green fuel development.

In June 2011, members of the United States Senate voted to abolish a 45-cents-a-gallon subsidy for ethanol from maize that is used for blending with petrol. There are compelling reasons why. A gallon of pure ethanol contains about two-thirds the energy of a litre of petrol.

Two weeks ago, the European Commission released a proposal to limit the use of food-based feedstock and stimulate the development of alternative biofuels from non-food feedstock. The proposal provides incentives for feedstocks that do not create additional demand for land, including algae, straw and waste.  What is more consequential is that the EU proposal sets a limit of 5% on the use of crop-based biofuels.

However, representatives of the European biofuel industry are speaking out against the proposal, arguing that it will hurt the region’s biofuel industry in the midst of the European economic crisis. This is especially callous, in my view, if you consider that that global food prices have jumped 6% poor people in developing countries spend 50-80% of their income on food.

The failure of the first-generation biofuels has stimulated interest in developing alternative or second-generation biofuels from non-food feedstocks. The success of the second-generation biofuels must evaluated on fundamental environmental sustainability and economic policy goals:

1.     Second-generation biofuels must not compete for land and water used for food and fibre production;

2.    Second-generation biofuels must achieve technology and market competiveness without government subsidies to compete with petroleum;

3.     Second-generation biofuels must deliver greenhouse gas emission reductions or mitigations  once direct and indirect land use change is accounted for. 

Harnessing Kenya's Endemic Corruption

Corruption is endemic in Kenya, especially bribery of government officials by citizens seeking public services or citizens who break the law and want to get away.

I think I have a solution. Make corruption official. Call it something else, like facilitation fee or goodwill or premium service levy. Encourage public officials and citizens to declare how much they receive or pay. Make a guaranteed commission to the public officer on bribes collected and have Kenya Revenue Authority retain the balance as part of public revenue. 




I bet that receipts from corruption (premium service levy) could be bigger than our annual takings from tourism and agriculture combined. In a depressed economy, it is the only growth sector.

If you doubt, look at the life style of public officials; the homes, property, the cars they drive, the schools they send their kids to and the restaurants they patronize. From Miguna's account, one official in Mr. Odinga's office received over KES 1.5 billion in less than three years.

To balance the budget and reduce the deficit, I think Finance Minister, Mr. Githae should look at this seriously.

Long Walk to Nationhood

Kenya is on the brink of something monumental. The country is pulsating. A world is watching and waiting with bated breath.

On March 4, 2013 millions of Kenyans will stand in line to cast their vote in the first general election under a new constitutional dispensation.

For many Kenyans, this election, especially the promise of a new constitutional dispensation, seems to be the universal panacea for all that is irksome and inconvenient about the colonial creature that is Kenya.

My sense is that there is a veritable burden of misconceptions and false expectations about what a constitution can and should do. We forget that there are critical boundary conditions of social trust and cohesion that must exist to enable a new constitutional order to flower.

The fact that a majority of electoral constituencies are defined ethnically is problematic. Kenyan politicians learn from very early in the careers to pander to the toxic ethnic sensitivities. Moreover, political parties map neatly along ethnic fault lines. The voting public cannot participate thoughtfully and freely in a democratic process because their ethnic chiefs have framed the political agenda and have the final say on how they vote.

At the level of ordinary citizens, what we see is ethnic suspicion often deeply founded in purely ethnic duels for the presidency. We are an ethnically polarized country engulfed in a mindless zero sum game. It becomes easy and even necessary for politicians to mobilize around their ethnic base or a rally together around superficial and fleeting ethnic coalitions.

Different ethnic groups can only come together, often fleetingly, if they rationalize a negative stereotype or straw man or propagate a mutually compelling and circumstantial narrative of victimology or fear mongering that casts one or more ethnic groups as the villain.

The frustration that many of many Kenyans have is to do with the gravity of the presidency and its power to underwrite ethnic fiat and breed ethnic political and business elites. This government and the previous two are a treatise on models for building and sustaining ethnic elites.

The problems we have seen in the nearly half a century since independence are merely symptoms of a deep and fundamental identity problem. Who are these people who occupy this colonial geographic space called Kenya? How did we come to occupy our current ethnic spaces? How do we know what we know about each other and ourselves? Do our disparate colonial experiences matter? How did we relate before the colonial state? How did we relate in the colonial state? How have we been socialized in the post-colonial state? How are we socializing our kids today? What does it mean to belong here, beyond holding a Kenyan passport?

Our history, especially the uneven burden or privilege of our colonial experience confers differential levels of entitlement and belonging. Some societies suffered an inordinate burden and have the scars to show for the bestiality of colonialism. So the veneration of fighters, heroes and founders is absolutely legitimate. But the contestations and debate around the “independence struggle”, however that is defined, must be robust and continual.

In Kenya, identities are multiple. But the vast majority of people feel any polity is subservient to their ethnic stripes. To the extent that a constitution embodies a people’s nationhood and enshrines fundamental rights and obligations of citizenship, identity presents a serious challenge to the intention, purpose and promise of a new constitutional dispensation.

For all intents, political and practical, we are collection of ethnicities under one administrative conglomerate, Kenya. Loyalty is first and foremost to one’s ethnic group. The three successive governments have governed by the logic of ethnic expediency not broad national interests.

It is difficult to get Kenyans – a term that could easily just mean the people who live in the country Kenya – to question and debate the purpose and relevance our education system or public transportation system or quality of health care. But it is very easy to spark a protracted, emotive and robust debate on the ethnicity of senior public servants. Prosecution of corrupt public officials is often stymied by claims of ethnic lynching.

We need a robust debate that can bring to the fore the big and urgent questions of our multiple identities, histories and fears. The events of 2007/2008 presented an opportunity for deep and honest conversation about nationhood but we as a nation lacked the courage.

A new constitution or even the next March 4 2013 elections will not give us the thing we sorely need – a Kenyan Nation. But certainly a new government under a new constitution could give us the courage to start on the long and hard road of building a nation. We are 50 years late.

Smart Urban Growth for Kenya

According to the most recent United Nations World Urbanization Prospects report, more than half of the world’s population now lives in cities compared to 30% 50 years ago and 10% 100 years ago.

In Africa where the combined urban population is expected to double from about 300 million in 2000 to 750 million in 2030, the next two decades will be immensely challenging. With rapid population growth and a history of low-density settlement, the rate of increase in urban land cover in Africa is predicted to be the highest in the world.

Urban growth in Kenya’s cities occurs organically, in an unplanned fashion through proliferation of slums in the inner city. Slums often develop in ecologically sensitive areas such as riparian buffers and wetlands. For example, 16 out 25 major slum settlements in Nairobi are located in very close proximity to rivers, dams and wetlands.

 Kenya’s urban expansion has taken an unprecedented path, annexation of farmland and rangelands. In 2009, Thika Greens Limited purchased 1,706 acres from Othaya Farmers Cooperative Society to build an ultra modern golf city 40 km from Nairobi. Tatu City will soon rise upon an old coffee estate 15 km northeast of Nairobi. About 96 km south of Nairobi, concrete, glass and steel skyscrapers will transform pristine rangelands into Africa’s Silicon Savannah.

Kenya’s growing urban clusters are now transforming peri-urban regions, with significant impacts on biodiversity and the provision of vital services of nature such as water. Moreover, loss of agricultural land to urbanization, combined with weak food systems, is beginning to place severe constraints on future food security for Kenya’s rapidly growing urban population.

Worldwide cities are widely regarded as crucible or laboratory for experimentation, failure and success. One would expect our city planners to learn from this laboratory and formulate innovative models for 21^st century urban design. In her seminal book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs argues that there is nothing inevitable – socially or economically – about the decay of old cities or the fresh-minted decadence of new urbanization.

We will wind up this century as homo urbanus, wholly urban creatures. Such a demographic transition will see millions give up the vast airy purity of open rural spaces for a cloistered, stifling existence in the city – the concrete jungle of hard tarred roads, stone, glass, steel, parking lots, traffic gridlock and foul air. Global sustainability is now tightly linked with safe and healthy urban living.

The Cities and Biodiversity Outlook report, the first global assessment of the links between of urbanization and biodiversity ecosystem services was launched at the 11^th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity held in Hyderabad, India last week. According the report, urban growth will have significant impacts on biodiversity, natural habitats and a range of vital ecosystem services that we depend upon.

The Cities and Biodiversity Outlook report argues that while urbanization is the cause of many socio-economic and environmental problems, it provides an unprecedented opportunity for finding novel solutions for sustainable urbanization. Sustainable urbanization presents a great opportunity for achieving water, food and energy efficiency while enhancing the maintenance of vital ecosystem services both within and outside the city boundaries. 

The future growth and expansion of Kenyan cities must not be condemned to one of two paths: proliferation of slums or annexation of agricultural land or rangelands. The sustainable growth pathway must comprise re-designing existing cities with development aggregated around high-density residential areas, mixed-use development, public transit, pedestrianism, public recreational spaces (squares and parks) and urban gardens.

The global epidemic of non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and chronic respira­tory illnesses, are associated with urban. However, there is growing evidence that urban spaces that improve air quality and promote active living can enhance human health. We must therefore increase the quantity and quality of well-planned beautiful public spaces.

Through innovative building codes, Nairobi could mandate harvesting and storage of rainwater. Ecological engineering deploying constructed wetlands and wastewater aquaculture can effectively to treat and purify roof and urban storm runoff. Nairobi can achieve water sufficiency and end its wasteful appropriation of water from outlying agricultural areas.

The metastasizing of cars is an indictment of our incompetence at urban planning and design. A combination of incentives for transit-oriented, walkable and bicycle- friendly urban areas can promote healthy living and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A study published by Egerton University’s Tegemeo Institute in 2011 revealed that 30% of food insecure households live in urban and peri-urban areas. The study also showed that 44% of households in Nairobi are undernourished. Urban agriculture provides a complementary strategy to reduce urban poverty and food insecurity.

Smart urbanization must equitably allocate the costs and benefits of development, enhance natural and cultural resources and promote economic wellbeing and population health.

Kenyan Elections: Referendum on The Hague Process

About 10 months ago, Prime Minister Raila Odinga had this halo of "president in waiting". He was the clear front runner and he was the man to beat. And to some extent, many observers thought this was his election to lose. But I think Mr.Odinga and his advisors were too naive to not see the possibility of the Kibaki/Uhuru wing scuttling his presidential bid and making hard his path to the State House very hard.  

People like James Orengo and Anyang Nyongo gave Mudavadi sufficient reason to believe that he would not get the ODM presidential ticket and he would not be considered as a possible running mate for Odinga. In his frustration, the Uhuru/Kibaki wing saw an opportunity to cause him to defect, offering him a party of his own and a guaranteed place on the ballot paper. And he took the bait. 

It has been suggested that Deputy Prime Minister Mudavadi was being fronted by the Kibaki state house. I think this may have been true to the extent that this was necessary to weaken Mr. Odinga's bid for the presidency. Mudavadi's recent high profile trip with Kibaki to the UN General Assembly was choreographed to lend credence to the perception that Mudavadi is Kibaki's "Project" or preferred heir. 

I think Mr. Mudavadi is staring at the beginning of a very tough phase in his political career. He has been here before. But I think this hole will be very difficult to crawl out of. He no heir to Kibaki, unless Mr. Kenyatta says so!

I find several things curious: That president Kibaki's schedule could not find space for a meeting with Kofi Annan and Benjamin Mkapa; That Uhuru said that past help received from Mr. Annan and Mr. Mkapa does not "give them a ticket to be coming here [to Kenya] whenever they have no other place to go"; In an interview with Stephen Sackur, Ruto said the election and his quest for the presidency has nothing to do with is alleged role on the post election violence and the with the Hague ICC; Ruto met with Odinga to discuss a possible alliance and Ruto drove a hard deal asking to be the head of the ticket; Ruto  and Kenyatta agree to run on a joint ticket, with Kenyatta and the presidential candidate and they say the election will be a referendum of the Hague Process. 

What I think we will see in the coming weeks and months is high-octane political mobilizing, through very well organized high publicity rallies across the country, especially in Central Kenya and Rift Valley to drum up ethnically charged and fanatical support for Kenyatta and Ruto. 

The purpose of this mobilizing is to prime their ethnic base to drive the country into a constitutional crisis, through a poll boycott, should the Kenyan courts rule that Kenyatta and Uhuru cannot run on the grounds of integrity because of the cases pending at the Hague. 

We will soon see massive political organizing to drum up support for No Kenyatta-Ruto ticket, No Elections". Ruto and Kenyatta want to make sure they mobilize threshold levels of ethnic emotions to touch off ethnic tension and uncertainty before the March 2013 elections. In my view, the level of anxiety will be so high as to merit serious considerations about postponing the elections and triggering a possible constitutional crisis, considering that parliament will stand dissolved. 

For Kenyatta and Ruto, they hope that the perilous instability and risk of ethnic conflict  will persuade the AU and the UN-Security Council and General Assembly to throw out the cases before the ICC. 

You have to take seriously the claim by Kenyatta and Ruto that the general elections will be a referendum on the Hague Process. 

Securing Africa’s Food Future

Alarmed by the growing poverty and hunger in Africa the international community has mounted a vigorous campaign to transform Africa’s agriculture in ways could produce a Green Revolution for Africa. Development experts and donor agencies have made the case for ramping up global capital flows to revitalize Africa’s agriculture through increased use of mineral fertilizers, high yield seeds, putting more land under irrigation and increased use of pesticides. 

The attraction of the Asia’s Green Revolution is that it contributed to significant poverty reduction and halted the tide of hunger, which threatened to engulf millions of people in Asia. In some countries, the application of mineral fertilizers, the use of irrigation, pesticides and high yielding varieties has saved the conversion of millions of hectares of valuable ecosystems into agricultural land.

In its conception, a Green Revolution for Africa is essentially a redux of Asia’s Green Revolution. This is especially problematic given that Asia’s Green Revolution is beginning to unravel.

In rural Punjab farmers have fallen into debt because they are unable to keep up with the rising cost of inputs – fertilizers, irrigation pumps and regular fresh supplies of seed ­– which are the hallmark of the Green Revolution.  Moreover, Indian farmers unable to repay loans and faced with spiraling interest often see suicide as the only solution.

According to the Asian Development Bank, 38% of irrigated area in Pakistan is now waterlogged and 14% of the land surface is too saline for agricultural use. More than 3 million hectares of land in the Indus Plains of Pakistan is rigged with tube-wells and drains at the cost of millions of dollars but the reclamation is only partially successful.

The proponents of the Green Revolution have argued that the unintended negative consequences we now see in Asia and in the OECD and Latin America were caused not by technology but by fundamental failure in policy and institutions. The jury is still out.

Intended or unintended, the impact of high input industrial style agriculture has had huge impacts on water quality and quantity, soil quality and greenhouse gasses. The slowdown in yield growth that has been observed since the mid-1980s can be attributed, in part, to the degradation of the natural resource base and the inoperable undermining of ecosystem services, which are vital to agriculture.

As a PhD student, I learned the fundamental ecological principles that undergird soil productivity. I did not learn this from esoteric simulation models or laboratory experiments of a professor of agro-ecology. I learned from the decades of experimentation and the dogged experience of farmers on the edge of Kakamega Forest in Western Kenya.

Put against these time tested, biologically informed African smallholder farmer intuitions the agro-industrial methods of modern agriculture must appear dangerously naïve. Modern technologies can no more manufacture a gram of soil with a tank of chemicals than we can engineer a rainforest or produce a single pollinator bee or an earthworm.

Our best hope for sustainable agriculture requires above all, the maintenance of biological diversity and complexity in agricultural landscapes. Rather than perpetuate the myth of resource-poor smallholder farmers, it is time to understand farmers for what they are; solid professionals with knowledge and skills rooted in time and space. Their ability to farm with nature provides the opportunity for understanding the ecological foundations of agriculture. It is only through such understanding of the ecology of agricultural systems that doors will open to new management options that can deliver global food systems that are environmentally, socially and economically viable.

The concept of sustainable agricultural intensification and environmental stewardship is gaining currency in scientific, policy and institutional circles as a goal for both public and private action. Moreover, after Rio+20, the concept of a Green Economy is gaining increasing currency in sustainability lexicon. The Green Economy is an alternative vision for growth, which unlike GDP promotes a triple bottom line: sustaining economic, social and environmental wellbeing.

A Green Revolution for Africa must learn from the failures of Asia’s Green Revolution and its western agro-industrial foundations. A Green Revolution for Africa must not be measured on narrow criteria, such as profitability or yields. It should be evaluated on how well it addresses environmental sustainability and household food security, especially access to food and food quality.  

More importantly, a Green Revolution for Africa must:

1.     Enhance biomass recycling, optimize nutrient availability and balance nutrient flows;

2.     Secure favorable soil conditions for plant growth by enhancing soil biotic activity, managing organic matter and soil moisture;

3.     Enhance beneficial biological interactions and promote key ecological process through diversified farming landscapes comprising multiple species of crops, grasses and trees;  

4.     Recognize and reward farmers for providing ecosystem services (good water quality; protection biodiversity; prevention of erosion and sedimentation, carbon dioxide sequestration).

Water: The Next Global Crisis?

The world is on the verge of the greatest crisis it has ever faced. Worsening water security will have irreversible consequences on ecosystems, livelihoods and the global economic system.

The ever-expanding water demand of the world’s growing population and economy is already making water scarcity a reality in many parts of the world. We are witnessing severe damage to livelihoods, human health, and ecosystems. It is predicted by most accounts that by 2013, global water requirements would increase by 40% above current accessible and reliable supply.

In the next two decades, global demand for fresh water will vastly outstrip reliable supply in many parts of the world, especially in the developing world. We are exerting heavy pressure on river basins and underground aquifers. Moreover, climate change is predicted to escalate scarcity in water-stressed regions. Global warming is expected to accelerate melting of glaciers and snow cover upon which over a billion people depend on for their water.

The world is increasingly turning its attention to the issue of water scarcity. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) of the USA recently released a report entitled Global Water Security, which posits that water supply issues around the globe will lead to economic instability, civil and international wars, and even the use of water as a weapon in the next several decades.

Predictions by the US government and the United Nations show that by 2030 over 30% of the world population will be living in river basins that will have to cope with significant water stress, including many of the countries and regions that drive global economic growth. For instance, water tables in many countries, including the USA, India and China have dropped significantly in the last 20 years, indicating that we have exceeded our renewable water budget and are unsustainably mining the resource.

Because of increasing water scarcity, India’s “green revolution” is being reversed; crop yields in northern India have fallen in some areas by 15-20%. Desertification and drought are hurting farmers in northern China, and both India and China are now significant importers of grain.

Many regions already experiencing water stress will become more stressed. Water stress may contribute to the risk of instability and state failure, particularly when combined with poverty, environmental degradation and governance incapability. More importantly, regional tensions over shared river basins are likely to rise. The Nile Basin is a case in point.

Under British colonial rule, a 1929 treaty reserved 80% of the Nile’s entire flow for Egypt and Sudan. 75 percent of Egypt’s water is used for agriculture, most of it wasted by inefficient, old-fashioned irrigation practices. Investors from China, India and the Persian Gulf region have expressed interest in underwriting enormous agriculture projects in Uganda and Ethiopia. Increased upstream water use in the Nile Basin is a potential tinderbox for regional conflict.

According to the Global Water Security report, transnational water basin agreements often do not exist or are inadequate. For example, the report concludes that mechanism to the govern the Brahmaputra basin and Amu Darya basin (shared by is "inadequate," and those governing the Tigris-Euphrates, the Nile, and the Mekong is "limited, while the governance of the Indus and the Jordan rivers is moderate.

While climate change will undoubtedly have an increasing impact on water availability and food production over the coming decades, there are many other factors including urbanization, changing diets that will increasingly impact water availability. The growing water gap between supply and demand is likely to have major ramifications for our planet.

Urgent national and global action is needed to avert what is evidently an imminent crisis. What we need is a Blue Revolution. Actions needed to underpin a Blue Revolution must include:

1.     Access to high quality data and monitoring networks for water planning and management. Data is critical for water allocations and also a dynamic picture of the impact of climate change and additional water use on the water resources and the environment. If you can’t measure it you cant manage it;

2.     Reform of water governance by improving determination of water rights and allocation systems, including innovative systems for valuation, pricing and trade to water productivity;

3.     Managing agricultural water demand by increasing in irrigation efficiency, growing drought-resistant crops and improving soil water holding capacity in rainfed systems;

4.     Managing urban water demand by increasing recycling and reuse, renovating infrastructure to reduce urban water losses, which averages 40-60% in many cities and demand management strategies including technology and pricing;

5.     Promoting participatory watershed management and market efficiency for environmental stewardship through coupling water resource management with payments for ecosystem services.

We must act to solve the complex and related problems of water security, food security and global sustainability. And time is of essence!

Football Success Affects Student Achievement

According to a study published in the October issue of American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 4(4): 254-74, students study less and party more when their football team wins—and a successful season on the gridiron significantly reduces the grades of male students relative to females.

Lindo Jason and colleagues found, among other things, that:

• Twenty-four percent of males reported that athletic success either “definitely” or “probably” decreased their study time, compared with only 9 percent of females.
• Male grades fell significantly with the success of the football team, both in absolute terms and relative to females.
• Forty-seven percent of males reported increased partying when the team won, compared with 28 percent of females.
• Females whose GPA’s increased with the success of the football team—including those with low ability, those with high financial need, and African-American students—were less likely to drop out of college after a successful season. (The researchers could not determine whether that was a result of their improved academic performance, or by more direct effects of the team’s success.) The study found no evidence that football success had any impact on males’ dropout behavior.
• Female students were slightly more likely than male students to indicate an increased tendency to miss class associated with a win. However, the result was not significant, the researchers said.
• Some 40 percent of female students, and more than 50 percent of males, watched 10 or more games out of 12 during the 2010 season.

Excerpts from an article written by Brad Wolverton, published in The Chronicle http://chronicle.com/blogs/players/category/division-i-athletics