Modern bioenergy can 'liberate' China's farmers , but pro-poor policy needed

We have often pointed to the potential modern bioenergy offers for rural poverty alleviation. Around 2 billion people in the developing world still rely on primitive, dangerous and wasteful biomass technologies for energy (like burning fuel wood on open fires). However, the very presence of these resources makes leapfrogging beyond fossil fuels and towards modern biofuels possible.

Dr Lin Gan, senior research fellow at CICERO (Center for International Climate and Environmental Research - Oslo) and former director of climate and energy programs for World Wide Fund for Nature in China, explores this vision in an interesting essay written for the Asia Times. He thinks modern bioenergy can 'liberate' the hundreds of millions of Chinese farmers who do not enjoy much of the country's growing prosperity. But this requires an appropriate, socially responsible bioenergy and biofuels policy:

Environmental and social costs of development
China is in a rapid transition toward industrialization and integration into the world economy. However, this development has had a high price, particularly on the environment, and has put heavy pressure on local energy resources and ecosystems.

In addition, the gap in income and living standards between urban and rural areas, and between the eastern and western regions of China, has widened and the unemployment rate is increasing. Many are concerned that long-term prosperity of the country maybe harmed by these social disparities. It is projected that unemployment will grow to 100 million people by 2010, and most of it will be in the poor western regions, where farmers are desperately seeking to survive and create better lives for their families. It is clear China will have to look for alternative solutions to develop its agriculture sector, as some 900 million farmers depend on it.

Agriculture in China has developed at a much slower pace than industry over the past two decades, which has led to increasing disparity between rural and urban residents. The majority of the migrant workers from the agriculture sector come to cities for economic reasons: the loss of their lands to urban expansion, increased mechanization in agricultural production, and low income from selling agricultural products.

In particular, major challenges to sustainable rural development occur in the western regions, where severe problems co-exist. Farmers lag in income behind those in the coastal regions; ecosystems are vulnerable; poverty is still a social problem; the majority of the farmers still rely on traditional use of agricultural residues, forest biomass or coal for cooking and space heating, which have severe indoor air-pollution problems that damage health. Above all, the current focus on exploitation of raw materials for industry and fossil-fuel resources cannot make farmers rich, but will rather leave them with pollution, land damage and, above all, depletion of their means of living.

The Chinese government has realized that it must urgently search for alternative solutions. Under the banner of the so-called "harmonious society", the government is looking into new options, namely sustainable rural development, achieved by using resources more efficiently and prioritizing new and renewable energy sources with wider market applications.

Bioenergy to the rescue?
With its vast territory and diversified geographic regions, China has large stocks of biomass resources from agricultural and forest residues, and also large wastelands that can potentially be used for bioenergy development: small and decentralized electricity and heat generation, household applications, and biofuels development:
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Bioenergy has become a top priority in the government agenda as the Renewable Energy Law was implemented starting in January 2006. The current focus is on electricity generation from surplus agricultural residues, which were estimated at 200 million tonnes yearly. The government has set a long-term target of 30 gigawatts of electricity generated from biomass by 2020, which will require billions of US dollars in investment.

There is a growing interest in biofuels development as well, such as bio-diesel and ethanol, with the intention of replacing imported oil, which accounts for more than 40% of the country's total oil supply today and may reach more than 50% by 2010. That's why, to most people's surprise, the Chinese government has announced that it will import a million tonnes of ethanol each year from Brazil. Without doubt, these announcements pave the way for new business opportunities, both in China and internationally.

Pro-poor perspective
But this strategy is being defined too narrowly, with the missing part being the fulfillment of the needs of the poor and disadvantaged social groups. Newly built biomass-burning electric-power plants could be good news for those living in remote areas without access to electricity as decentralized power generation would help improve their quality of life. But the current plan, with dozens of demonstration biomass power plants being built, is mainly in economically developed regions, such as in Jiangsu and Shandong provinces.

The key point is that rural residents can only benefit from bioenergy development if it takes place where they live and takes their daily needs into account. The fact is that most farmers still use biomass for cooking and heating in traditional ways, especially in poor remote regions.

While farmers suffer from severe health impacts due to the burning of coal inside their households, fluoride poisoning, for example, is a common health problem in Guizhou province. Some 19 million poor farmers there, mostly minority ethnic groups, are affected, especially women, children and old people.

Traditional use of biomass also wastes a lot of energy because it uses family stoves whose efficiency rates are only at 5-8%. For example, one rural family in remote Yunnan province uses 14-16 tonnes of firewood per year on average, thus causing major damage to natural forests. Modern biomass stoves can achieve 30-40% efficiency rates. Implementation of such stoves would benefit the global environment, save resources, and also increase revenues for rural enterprises.

China needs to make a massive transition from traditional to modern uses of biomass as part of its strategy to develop rural areas in a sustainable way. This leapfrogging requires innovative policy support from the government. By doing so, it will benefit farmers through reduced fossil-fuel use, improvements in living conditions and health, job creation, and income generation.

Most agricultural residues today are burned in the fields, which pollutes the air and wastes energy. With the same amount of investment now used to develop biomass power plants, household-based biomass utilization could generate five to 10 times as many local jobs and five to nine times as much income for rural residents and small companies, in addition to other environmental and social benefits.

So far the Chinese government has not paid adequate attention to these points, especially how to use biomass resources more efficiently and related sustainability issues. Strong policy incentives should be established to provide favorable conditions to get investors, innovators and small enterprises involved in the social and technological transition toward sustainable rural development. Such energy policies could also play a large role in mitigating climate change, a more fruitful move than building pollution-creating coal-burning plants, as is done in China today at an increasing rate. By implementing policies to support household-based biomass use, pressures on rapid urban development could ease.

Internationally, bioenergy has become a dynamic driving force, with many committed players - governments, industries, aid agencies and increasingly private investors - wanting to get involved in China's land of opportunities that will spring from this transition. In the end, it will bring a new perspective to integrate reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions with sustainable rural energy development in China, which will also be a valuable experience for other biomass-rich developing countries in the move to reach social-development and environmental-protection goals.


Dr. Lin Gan received his bachelor's degree in library science from Shanxi University in 1982 and his master's degree in science and technology policy from the University of Lund, Sweden, in 1989. He received his PhD in public administration from Roskilde University, Denmark, in 1995.


Source: Lin Gan, "China's farmers need a second liberation", Asia Times, June 27, 2007.