RP to host international conference on biofuels

The Philippines is the venue of an international conference on biofuels set to be held on Oct. 7-8.

To focus on “Biofuels Development in Southeast and East Asia: Policy Issues and Research Agenda,” the two-day, top-level conference will be held at the Renaissance Hotel in Makati City.

Sponsors are the government-hosted, Los Baños-based Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization-Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEAMEO SEARCA) and Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP), together with the International Development Research Center (IDRC) of Canada and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The conference will be convened in the face of rising concerns over energy security and the environment, with governments in developed and developing countries aggressively encouraging biofuel production.

“Current biofuel technologies use agricultural feedstock such as grains and sugar for ethanol and rapeseed and palm oil for biodiesel,” the conference organizers pointed out.

For instance, Brazil (South America) mandates biofuel consumption and uses about half its sugarcane output to produced ethanol.

The United States has tax incentives, subsidies, and consumption mandates for biofuel production. At the current pace of investment, the US has planned to produce 15 billion gallons of biofuel by 2010.

“This means that between one-quarter and one-half of the current US maize crop will be used as feedstock,” the conference organizers stressed.

Germany, France, Canada, Australia, Japan, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and other developed and developing countries also have their own plans to expand the production of ethanol and biodiesel.

The conference aims to bring together key stakeholders in energy development to discuss a systematic and research-based impact assessment initiative on biofuel development in the region (including China).

More specifically, discussions are aimed at identifying key policy issues and agenda for research, coming up with an overall framework for the impact assessment study; and establishing regional and country teams in the selected Southeast Asian countries that will undertake the assessment study.

Resource speakers will present global and regional perspectives in biofuels development as well as country papers on the prospects of national biofuels initiatives.

Among the expected main outputs is a proposal on the “Effects of Emerging Biofuels on Agricultural Development, Food Security, Poverty, and the Environment with Specific Focus on Southeast Asia and East Asia.”