No bioeconomy without agroecology, planetary boundaries and right to food as guard rails

No bioeconomy without agro-ecology, planetary boundaries and right to food as guard rails
In his opening remarks, the panel’s moderator, Peter Gerhardt (denkhausbremen), already addressed some of the neglected problems of the bioeconomy, including the missing focus on resource consumption reductions, insufficient funding for multi-stakeholder initiatives and a lack of channels for the voices of rights-holders to be heard.
The first panelist, Dr Joachim H. Spangenberg (Scientific Advisory Council of BUND) went on to address other key issues from both an environmental and scientific perspective. These included land use competition, the lack of implementation of the food-first principle and sustainable production practices such as agroecology instead of genetically modified plants.
Morgan Ody (Confédération Paysanne / La Via Campesina), put particular focus on the neo-colonial situations of exploitation between the Global North and South. In her view, the South’s primary role was biomass export, whilst industrial processing was located in Europe. She said that bioeconomy strategies were mainly devised for rich people in the Global North, whose resource consumption would have to be taxed.
Jutta Kill (World Rainforest Movement) drew the attention to the deforestation and landgrabbing issue as a consequence of the current orientation of the bioeconomy. In her view, the inherent agro-industrial model fuelled corporate control over community land. She said that tree plantations by European (oil) companies to generate emission rights had led to displacement and reduced food production.
Following this statement, there was a lively debate with the audience on the systematic deficits of the bioeconomy at the expense of human rights, water and land resources and biodiversity. The unanimous opinion of the panel and certainly also of many of the 140 participants was that without remedying these deficits the bioeconomy would remain a green-coloured false solution.

The bioeconomy alone can achieve neither a post-fossil, climate-smart economy nor secure world food security; it is not a one size fits all solution. Whether it can make a relevant positive contribution or, on the contrary, will have a counter-productive impact depends on the framework conditions. To date, the conceptual openness and lack of international minimum standards are opposed to this. Among the diverse international bioeconomy agendas, the globalised agro-industrial approach prevails and thus unchecked biomass consumption. So far, local agro-ecological concepts have hardly played any role. Ecological and social resources are ruthlessly exploited for the short-term profits of a small number of people. Conflicts of interests between profits, renunciation of fossil raw materials, protection of the environment and biodiversity, the right to food and the protection of human rights are among the major challenges facing the bioeconomy.
The fact is that the limited resource of biomass is already being overused around the globe. Deforestation and displacement are the consequence. Two million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction.
The expert panel will address the question of how a bioeconomy must be designed so that it can be part of a socio-ecological transformation and not just remain a green-coloured false solution. These and other aspects will be discussed by international and national long-standing experts as well as those directly affected by the bioeconomy.