Agrofuels capitalism: a view from political economy

Abstract

This article considers the global expansion of agrofuels feedstock production from a political economy perspective. It considers and dismisses the environmental and pro-poor developmental justifications attached to agrofuels. To local populations and direct producers, the specific destination of the crop as fuel, food, cosmetics or other final uses in faraway places is probably of less interest than the forms of (direct or indirect) appropriation of their land and the forms of their insertion or exclusion as producers in global commodity chains. Global demand for both agrofuels and food is stimulating new forms (or the resurgence of old forms) of corporate land grabbing and expropriation, and of incorporation of smallholders in contracted production. Drawing both on recent studies on agrofuels expansion and on the political economy literature on agrarian transition and capitalism in agriculture, this article raises the question whether ‘agrofuels capitalism’ is in any way essentially different from other forms of capitalist agrarian monocrop production, and in turn whether the agrarian transitions involved require new tools of analysis.

Keywords:

• agrofuels
• biofuels
• agrarian political economy

Notes

¹For example, the material on Sime Darby's corporate website http://plantation.simedarby.com/Biodiesel, or Borgman (2007) writing for John Deere.

²E.g. Thompson (2008)

³We should note that the arguments made in this paper do not apply to (potential) models of agrofuels production in which large-scale capital might not be involved at all: small-scale, environmentally friendly agrofuels production primarily for local use, embedded in sustainable mixed-farming systems (for example, those discussed in Oxfam 2008, 34–5). This is a separate, and important, topic for research.

⁴This phrase is borrowed from Annie Shattuck (2009, 94).

⁵As mentioned before the geopolitics of agrofuel production requires a separate analysis and is not discussed here.

⁶Agrofuel Africa, a subsidiary of Bio Fuel Norway (www.agrofuel.no).

⁷Unusually, Byberg expressed his regrets and a promise not to repeat the mistake.

⁸The deal is now reported to be cancelled after the change in government in early 2009 (BBC World Service News, 19 March 2009).

⁹GRAIN (2009, and other reports accessible at www.grain.org) provides useful compilations and updates about such land deals.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ben White

The authors are grateful to Murat Arsel, participants in the Halifax workshop on Biofuels, Land and Agrarian Change and the editors and anonymous reviewers of this issue for their helpful comments and suggestions.