Need for biofuel policies illustrated in Hungary, where opportunistic biomass harvesting amplifies drought

An interesting example of the need for strong policies and farming rules for biofuels comes from Hungary. Like many other countries in the EU, Hungary has suffered a drought, slashing its corn output by half. These droughts are responsible for an increase in food and biofuel feedstock prices (earlier post).

According to Szent Istvan University professor Marta Birkas, lack of precipitation is not the only cause of this drought in Hungary's maize areas: careless agricultural techniques, opportunistic biofuel production and burning agricultural by-products in power plants have amplified the situation's severity.

This year's dry weather would have had less impact on crops if farmers had left the maize plants' stalks and straw on the fields as protection from the sun and evaporation, instead of selling it as biomass.

There is plenty of biomass out there to burn and lots of fallow land to grow energy crops. I caution everyone not to sell [corn] straw and stalks to power plants. The soil needs it as a protection from drought. - Marta Birkas, Szent Istvan University professor

Like the professor says: there is enough land and biomass from other sources, so in theory biofuels as such are not the problem. What is problematic is the market-driven rush to cash in on the biofuel boom, which pushes farmers to disregard basic sustainability rules and which drives them to exploit resources where they can be gotten in the least costly way. The problem can be observed elsewhere.

Analysts from the IEA's Bioenergy Taskforces confirm that there is 'plenty of land out there' on a planetary basis (to be exact: more than enough to produce more energy from sustainable biofuels than the world's total energy use combined). But the best land is used first, and expansion into the very areas that would make biofuel production more sustainable, is more costly. Moreover, in the specific case of Hungary it must be said that corn is a crop that should be abandoned for biofuels production in any case, as the energy balance of maize-based fuel is very weak, as is its GHG reduction potential. It also requires heavy inputs of fertilizers.

Thus, strong policies are urgently needed to ensure a certain degree of sustainability. Biofuel makers in Hungary turn grains and oil seeds into gasoline and many burn farm byproducts to meet the often high energy needs of their plants for processes like fermentation. For this, they utilize resources that should be left on the field, especially when drought looms:
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Wrong farming methods, especially careless ploughing, also reduces the soil's ability to store water efficiently, Birkas said.

Ministry officials said Hungary would invest heavily in farm machinery and irrigation to address these problems as drought was becoming more frequent, hitting the major grain growing country for the fourth time in 10 years.

"Soil dryness has several causes, both lack of precipitation and wrong agricultural techniques," Agriculture Minister Jozsef Graf told Reuters.

Hungary needs to raise its irrigated area by at least 100,000 ha from about 80,000 hay, another official said.

This year's drought is expected to cut the maize crop by half to 4 million tones and Hungary has started buying back grain left in European Union stores from previous bumper seasons to sell to animal breeders short of feed.

References:
Reuters: Biofuels worsen Hungary's drought, expert says - September 20, 2007.

Biopact: UN: biofuels not to blame for high food prices - September 14, 2007