Soy production and certification: the case of Argentinean soy-based biodiesel

Abstract

Agrochemicals, Argentina, Biodiesel, Certification, Soybean,

Integrated food–energy systems for climate-smart agriculture

“…Such certification standards do not sufficiently account for food security and environmental impacts which should be equally considered with, if not prioritized over, GHG emissions to justify the denomination sustainable biofuels. Some experts therefore argue that current certification schemes such as those developed by the European Commission and other existing certification initiatives -for example, the Roundtable of Sustainable Soy, the Better Sugarcane Initiative and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palmoil -alone will not be sufficient to address food security and environmental concerns, and that additional appropriate policies are needed to mitigate social and environmental risks [54].…”

“…Of the few assessments that are explicitly designed for integrated systems, some are particularly strong on the biophysical side of integrated farming systems and ecoagricultural farming practices -for instance, analysis on the performance of prototype farms on the basis of 12 agro-ecological indicators and the framework for interpreting indicators of ecosystem services [54,55] -while others rather focus on the socioeconomic side, such as the analysis of small-scale bioenergy initiatives [56]; only few studies holistically address both biophysical and socioeconomic aspects of farming systems -for example, the indicator-based assessment of ecosystem change and human-well-being [57]. Comprehensive methodologies for integrated landscape assessments still need to be developed as recently discussed at the Nairobi International Conference for the Landscapes for People, Nature and Climate Initiative held in March 2012.…”

Environmental Consequences of Land use Changes for Bioenergy Crop Production at a Regional Scale

“…These key steps are presented in this chapter. (Sioli 1985;Fearnside 2005;, and surface runoff (Bosch & Hewlett 1982;Twine, Kucharik & Foley 2004), changes the surface albedo, temperature and evapotranspiration (Sampaio et al 2007;Loarie et al 2011), and then causes habitat loss and fragmentation for fauna and flora ( burning (Martinelli & Filoso 2008;Tsao et al 2012), water consumption Tomei et al 2010;, soil erosion and sedimentation (Martinelli & Filoso 2008;, degradation of soil quality (Tomei et al 2010) and water quality (Martinelli & Filoso 2008;) through loss of agrochemical inputs, and biodiversity loss due to conversion of native ecosystems to monoculture landscapes (Koh & Wilcove 2008;  air pollutant emissions (e.g. trace gas and particles) from biomass burning;…”

“…Besides the increasing vegetable oil imports, European companies have claimed over 5 million ha of land in the 'South', namely South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa for biofuel production Matondi et al, 2011). Countries such as Spain have started importing soybean-based biodiesel from Argentina , and this has raised environmental and social sustainability concerns Tomei et al, 2010). To meet the biofuel target, EU countries 5 'Advanced fuel' refers to renewable fuel, other than ethanol derived from corn starch that has at least 50% less than baseline life cycle GHG emissions [ will depend more on imported feedstock and processed biofuels, especially fuel ethanol, from countries where agricultural expansion is possibledBrazil, Argentina, Ukraine and other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, the U.S. A.…”

“…The main challenges of certification criteria relate to weak application in emerging markets, implementation time and cost, inconsistency in the definition of terms (e.g. the distinction between primary and secondary forests) , and the uncertainty surrounding their ability to ensure compliance in producing countries (Tomei et al, 2010). However, they have the potential to influence not only future land-use policy but also its implementation and enforcement in bioenergy crop producing countries in coming decades.…”