RESULTS

The “aggressive biofuel growth” scenario shows dramatic increases in world prices for feedstock crops (Table 2). If cassava were to be used aggressively as a feedstock for bioethanol, cassava prices would rise tremendously, causing sizable welfare losses to the major consumers of this crop, who reside mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. There would also be high economic costs. If cassava is not profitable as a biofuel feedstock at today’s oil prices, it certainly would not be at more than double the cassava price. Thus, this scenario would entail subsidies for the biofuel sector, which already exist for many countries (such as within the European Union), and could take the form of tax concessions at the pump or producer credits. The high price increases for oils and cassava suggest that the relatively low-yielding oil and root crops will have to make up fairly high shares of total production in order to meet the oil-displacement trends embedded in the “aggressive biofuel growth” scenario. In contrast, the second scenario, which includes the impact of cellulosic technologies, shows a considerable softening of these effects, especially for cassava and oil crops, and underlines the potential importance of such technical innovations at the industry level. Improvements in conversion efficiency for non-cellulosic processes are not introduced into the model, since these technologies have been in use for some time and show little room for improvement, based on studies cited in the literature. The third scenario illustrates the importance of crop technology innovation at the farm production level and shows a further softening of price impacts, with cassava …