Owino, Robert Omondi --- "Agrofuel law and policy in East Africa: assessing avenues for sustainability" [2016] ELECD 729; in Le Bouthillier, Yves; Cowie, Annette; Martin, Paul; McLeod-Kilmurray, Heather (eds), "The Law and Policy of Biofuels" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) 263

Book Title: The Law and Policy of Biofuels

Editor(s): Le Bouthillier, Yves; Cowie, Annette; Martin, Paul; McLeod-Kilmurray, Heather

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781782544548

Section: Chapter 11

Section Title: Agrofuel law and policy in East Africa: assessing avenues for sustainability

Author(s): Owino, Robert Omondi

Number of pages: 22

Abstract/Description:

Agrofuel remains a controversial and emotive subject that has resulted in debates that generate more heat than light. Not only is truth often the casualty, but views are mostly informed by vested interests, not unlike the almost extinct debate about whether global climate change is a reality or a conspiracy. Adopting an objective standpoint that advances environmental justice where science is not well settled becomes an uncertain exercise in which interest groups jostle for legislative advantage to ensure that their interests take priority. In the agrofuel debate, consummate “tree huggers” such as Biofuelwatch highlight the negative impacts of biofuels on biodiversity, food security, human rights and climate change, while large agrofuel multinationals such as Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Shell, Neste Oil, Biox Group, Caryle Group and Riverside Holdings, among others, have continued to make significant financial investments in the agrofuel sector, the negative impacts notwithstanding. This chapter deliberately employs the term “agrofuel” rather than “biofuel” to highlight the distinction between large-scale cultivation of feedstock on land through agricultural means, and more traditional uses of biomass such as charcoal, firewood or biogas: where instances defy this neat distinction, the term “biofuels” generally refers to liquid biofuels. The chapter ignores the distinction between first-and second-generation agrofuels, as this dichotomy reinforces the fallacy that generating liquid biofuels from biomass eliminates the food versus fuel competition.