Sugarcane for sustainable development?

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A recent article by two research fellows of the Stockholm Environment Institute explores the potential that sugarcane has to lift many African coutnries out of poverty http://bit.ly/13uoCme

The authors argue that "sugarcane in sub-Saharan Africa is a concrete example of an agro-industrial sector whose advancement can help address the triple challenge of energy insecurity, climate change and rural poverty".

But sugarcane is also a crop that requires a lot of water and it is a monocuture that is profitable only when practiced on large scale and with modern technologies. Do you think that biofuels and monocultures are the answer to Africa's energy probelm? What do you think would be the nexus between energy security and food security?

4 Answers

  1. This is to say hello to all and join the Café. I do keep in memory the Cafés in my region of origin that have an unforgettable ambiance that the word "Café" always takes me back there. Back to the topic, Claudia, I would say that despite the monoculture nature of sugarcane and the conditions of success/profitability (scale, technology and water consumption), that however could still be argued subject to context, positive keywords/statement should be picked up from the article when addressing this topic. Examples are: the more systematic effort to develop bioenergy, growing sugarcane in appropriate locations and climates and making best use of land and water resources, and ensuring synergies rather than conflicts with food production and forest management. On top, the statement of the triple challenge of energy insecurity, climate change and rural poverty.

  3. Thanks for your reply, Boris! I am also sceptic concerning monocultures and I fear their negative effect on food security. Yet, many large scale sugarcane farms are operating on the basis of outgrouwer schemes that without doubt create jobs and provide valid sources of livelihood for many small scale farmers. The issue is quite complex and without a clear (long-term!) cost-benefit analysis for each large-scale sugarcane operation it is hard to tell who wins and loses...

    1 Comment

    1. Hello everyone, I agree with Claudia: sustainability does imply a rigorous long-term cost/benefit analysis. Ressource management is crucial in order to provide for generations to come. IMO, sustainability is not compatible with the current global market economy, which is associated with computer-assisted financial speculation that mostly focuses on immediate profit margins and pretend to believe in the illusion of constant economic growth. This would imply that in order to survive, a sucessful company has to stay competitive by reducing its investments in environment preservation. It is clear that industrial activity directly impacts ecosystems in a destructive fashion but those negative externalities are often overlooked because they are not profit enhancing. It's kind of a vicious cycle and we might be prisonners of our standard of living. Enlightened individuals know that unless people open their eyes and subsequently change their way of thinking, then leaders will not change either. One last question: how can farmers who only grow sugar cane and spend fortunes in irrigation, as well as chemical inputs, feed themselves and their family properly? They will probably get into debt really quick... Indeed, they will have to pay for all those expensive inputs and by overproducing a single crop, prices will drop. Markets will force them to selling at a loss. They will not be able to reimburse loans or even buy food at the local market, where foreign imports are in any case subsidised and represent ferocious competition to small scale farmers. We will pay the price for all the destruction we are causing. Each day, more people feel like they don't have anything to lose anymore. "A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet." C. Sagan

  4. Hello Claudia, Very interesting subject, thanks for sharing. In my opinion, biofuels and monocultures are not answering food issues, nor energy problems. Monocultures are an incredible waste of space and edible foodcrops probably should not be used for anything other than feeding humans. Especially when so many are hungry... The nexus between energy and food security in developing countries could reside in creating a lot of small diversified family farms, that would aspire to feed people correctly and support local economies (by giving them jobs, sponsoring local production and taxing unfair competitive imports from richer countries). Are we responsible for starving the world? Do we really need to only drink bottled water from the purest spring sources in Fidji? I don't think so... Or have we become water thieves?