Often, small-scale farmers settle the areas along logging roads in order to burn secondary or cleared forest for crop production. These farmers are eventually pushed or bought-out by large-scale cattle ranchers or soy prodcution owners.

Recently Uganda has outlined its national strategy for bioenergy to contribute to increasing the renewable energy mix from 4 to 16 percent by 2017. Several biofuel crops have been identified, including sugarcane, maize, oil palm and jatropha. A suitability assessment of these crops illustrates that the potential output from certain biofuel feedstocks is high. Several projects are underway to help the country meet their target. To red...

Biofuels pose several environmental and social risks. Therefore, to be truly a part of the green economy, biofuels need to comply with a set of safeguards along the entire production chain. Any bioenergy development strategy must integrate such safeguards at all levels, from policy to investments and the project itself. As impacts can be significant, they need to be assessed from a number of angles, including: • Direct and indirect lan...

The energy gain from biofuels is often expressed as a ratio of biofuel energy output to fossil energy input. However, when considering which biofuels are the most efficient using this metric, allowance must also be made for whether or not co-products such as animal feed and other forms of energy or biomass production are involved. Economically, the value of co-products is also critical; and together with various subsidies and tax incentiv...

For all developing countries over the period 1961–99, expansion of harvested land contributed only 29% to growth in crop production versus the contribution of increases in yields, which amounted to 71%; in sub-Saharan Africa, however, yield increases accounted for only 34% of growth in production.

Some regions report increases in some crops and positive financial returns have been reported for genetically modified cotton in studies including South Africa, Argentina, China, India and Mexico. In contrast, the US and Argentina may have slight yield declines in soybeans, and also for maize in the US. Studies on GMOs have also shown the potential for decreased insecticide use, while others show increasing herbicide use.

Increase in crop production has mainly been a function of increases in yield due to increased irrigation and fertilizer use. However, this may change in the future towards more reliance on cropland expansion, at the cost of biodiversity. (Source: FAO, 2006).

The agricultural sector is by far the biggest user of freshwater. Analysis indicates that: - In the United States, agriculture accounts for some 49% of total freshwater use, with 80% of this volume being used for irrigation (Shiklomanov, 1999). - In Africa and Asia, an estimated 85-90% of all freshwater used is for agriculture (Shiklomanov, 1999). - According to estimates for the year 2000, agriculture accounted for 67% of the world’s total fr...