Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T15:19:54.589Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘New agriculture’ for sustainable development? Biofuels and agrarian change in post-war Sierra Leone*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2013

Roy Maconachie  and
Elizabeth Fortin
Roy Maconachie*
Affiliation:
Centre for Development Studies, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, United Kingdom
Elizabeth Fortin*
Affiliation:
University of Bristol Law School, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1RJ, United Kingdom
*
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In sub-Saharan Africa, commercial bioenergy production has been hailed as a new form of ‘green capitalism’ that will deliver ‘win-win’ outcomes and ‘pro poor’ development. Yet in an era of global economic recession and soaring food prices, biofuel ‘sustainability’ has been at the centre of controversy. This paper focuses on the case of post-war Sierra Leone, a country that has over the last decade been consistently ranked as one of the poorest in the world, facing food insecurity, high unemployment and entrenched poverty. Following a recent government strategy to secure foreign direct investment in biofuels production in agriculturally rich regions of the country, the largest foreign investment in Sierra Leone since the end of its civil war has been secured: a Swiss company is to invest US$368 million into a large-scale biofuels project over the course of 3 years, and promises to simultaneously stimulate an enabling environment for investment, provide job opportunities for youth and increase food production. For multiple actors involved in the project, the concept of ‘sustainability’ is crucial but accordingly there are varying interpretations of its meaning. Such differences in interpretation and the complex contradictions within discourses of sustainability are in turn framed by the various scales within which these actors are situated. While attempts have been made to manage these contradictions through global sustainability standards, the unequal power relations between different actors will ultimately determine the ways in which they are likely to be resolved. The paper concludes by reflecting on how these processes may be contributing to a changing governance landscape and wider global political economy within which bioenergy is being produced, processed and consumed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 249 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2012 Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting in New York, in the session ‘Biofuels, Food and the Bio-based Economy’. The authors would like to thank the session organisers and participants for their useful feedback on the first version of the paper. The authors are also grateful for the constructive comments of three anonymous JMAS reviewers.

References

REFERENCES

Anane, M. & Abiwu, C. Y.. 2011. Independent Study Report of the Bovid Bioenergy Sugarcane-to-Ethanol Project in the Makeni Region in Sierra Leone. Freetown: Sierra Leone Network on the Right to Food/Bread for All (Switzerland)/Bread for All (Germany).Google Scholar
Andrew, M. & van Vlaenderen, H.. 2011. Commercial biofuel land deals and environment and social impact assessments in Africa: Three case studies in Mozambique and Sierra Leone. Land Deal Politics Initiative Working Paper 1. Cape Town: University of the Western Cape.Google Scholar
Auty, R. 1998. Resource Abundance and Economic Development: Improving the performance of resource rich countries. Helsinki: The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics.Google Scholar
Bailey, R. 2007. Bio-fuelling Poverty: why the EU renewable-fuel target may be disastrous for poor people. Oxfam Briefing Note. Oxford: Oxfam International.Google Scholar
Bassett, T. & Crummey, D., eds. 1993. Land in African Agrarian Systems. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Bernstein, H. 2010. Class Dynamics and Agrarian Change. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.Google Scholar
Blowfield, M. & Frynas, J. G.. 2005. ‘Setting new agendas: critical perspectives on corporate social responsibility’, International Affairs 81, 3: 499–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolten, C. 2009. ‘The agricultural impasse: creating “normal” post-war development in Northern Sierra Leone’, Journal of Political Ecology 16: 70–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bryceson, D. F. & Jamal, V., eds. 1997. Farewell to Farms: de-agrarianisation and employment in Africa. African Studies Centre Research Series, Leiden. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Clapp, J. & Fuchs, D., eds. 2009. Corporate Power in Global Agrifood Governance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cotula, L., Dyer, N. & Vermeulen, S.. 2008. Fuelling Exclusion? The Biofuels Boom and Poor People's Access to Land. London: FAO/IIED.Google Scholar
Cotula, L., Vermeulen, S., Leonard, R. & Keeley, J.. 2009. Land Grab or Development Opportunity? Agricultural investment and international land deals in Africa. London/Rome: FAO, IIED, IFAD.Google Scholar
Dauvergne, P. & Neville, K. J.. 2009. ‘The changing north-south and south-south political economy of biofuels’, Third World Quarterly 30: 1087–1102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dauvergne, P. & Neville, K. J.. 2010. ‘Forests, food and fuel in the tropics: the uneven social and ecological consequences of the emerging political economy of biofuels’, Journal of Peasant Studies 37, 4: 631–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Nie, D., Sayer, J. & McCormick, N.. 2009. Indirect effects of bioenergy – effects on landscapes and livelihoods. Proceedings of the Workshop on Indirect effects of bio energy, 9 June 2009, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. <http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/iucn_paper_indirect_effects_of_bioenergy_final_2.pdf>, accessed 3.8.2012.,+accessed+3.8.2012.>Google Scholar
Dolan, C. & Humphrey, J.. 2001. ‘Governance and trade in fresh vegetables: the impact of UK supermarkets on the African horticulture industry’, Journal of Development Studies 37: 147–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earth Policy Institute. 2010. Biofuels data from world on the edge, <http://www.earthpolicy.org/data_center/C26>, accessed 2.8.2012.,+accessed+2.8.2012.>Google Scholar
Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). 2002. Country Profile: Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia. EIU.Google Scholar
Ellis, F. 1998. ‘Household strategies and rural livelihood diversification’, Journal of Development Studies 35, 1: 1–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FAO/GBEP. 2008. A Review of the Current State of Bioenergy Development in G8+5 Countries. Rome: FAO/GBEP.Google Scholar
Fortin, E. 2013, forthcoming. ‘Transnational multi-stakeholder sustainability standards and biofuels: understanding standards processes’, Journal of Peasant Studies.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fortin, E. & Richardson, B.. 2013 ‘Certification schemes and the governance of land: enforcing standards or enabling scrutiny?’, Globalizations 10, 1: 141–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franco, J., Levidow, L., Fig, D., Goldfarb, L., Hönicke, M. & Mendonça, M. L.. 2010. ‘Assumptions in the European Union biofuels policy: frictions with experiences in Germany, Brazil and Mozambique’, Journal of Peasant Studies 37, 4: 661–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friedmann, H. 1993. ‘The political economy of food: a global crisis’, New Left Review 197: 29–57.Google Scholar
Friedmann, H. 2000. ‘What on earth is the modern world-system? foodgetting and territory in the modern era and beyond’, Journal of World-Systems Research 6: 480–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilberthorpe, E. & Banks, G.. 2012. ‘Development on whose terms?: CSR discourse and social realities in Papua New Guniea's extractive industries sector’, Resources Policy 37: 185–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillon, S. 2010. ‘Field of dreams: negotiating an ethanol agenda in the Midwest United States’, Journal of Peasant Studies 37: 723–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
GRAIN. 2008. Seized: the 2008 land grab for food and financial security. GRAIN Briefing, 2008. <http://www.grain.org/briefings_files/landgrab-2008-en.pdf>, accessed 2.8.2012.,+accessed+2.8.2012.>Google Scholar
Hajer, M. & Wagenaar, H.. 2003. ‘Introduction’, in Hajer, M. & Wagenaar, H., eds. Deliberative Policy Analysis: understanding governance in the network society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, D., Hirsch, P. & Li, T. M.. 2011. Powers of Exclusion: Land dilemmas in Southeast Asia. Singapore: NUS Press.Google Scholar
Hilson, G. 2012. ‘Corporate social responsibility in the extractive industries: experiences from developing countries’, Resources Policy 37: 131–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hilson, G. & Banchirigah, S. M.. 2009. ‘Are alternative livelihoods projects alleviating poverty in mining communities? Experiences from Ghana’, Journal of Development Studies 45, 2: 172–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollander, G. 2010. ‘Power is sweet: sugarcane in the global ethanol assemblage’, Journal of Peasant Studies 37: 699–721.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kytle, B. & Ruggie, J.. 2005. ‘Corporate social responsibility as risk management’, Working Paper 10, Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative. John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Kojima, M. & Klytchnikova, I.. 2008. Biofuels: Big potential for some … but big risks too. World Bank Institute: Development Outreach, October 2008.Google Scholar
Leisinger, K. 2005. ‘The corporate social responsibility of the pharmaceutical industry: idealism without illusion and realism without resignation’, Business Ethics Quarterly 15, 4: 577–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Li, T. M. 2009. ‘Exit from agriculture: a step forward or a step backward for the rural poor?’, Journal of Peasant Studies 36, 3: 629–36.Google Scholar
Li, T. M. 2010. ‘To make live or let die? Rural dispossession and the protection of surplus populations’, Antipode 41: 63–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, T. M. 2011. ‘Centering labor in the land grab debate’, Journal of Peasant Studies 38: 281–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, J. 2012. ‘Governing biofuels: a principal-agent analysis of the European Union Biofuels Certification Regime and the Clean Development Mechanism’, Journal of Environmental Law 24, 1: 43–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magdoff, F. 2008. ‘The political economy and ecology of biofuels’, Monthly Review 60: 34–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMichael, P. 2009a. ‘A food regime analysis of the “world food crisis”’, Agriculture and Human Values 26: 281–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMichael, P. 2009b. ‘Banking on agriculture: a review of the World Development Report 2008’, Journal of Agrarian Change 9, 2: 235–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMichael, P. 2010. ‘Agrofuels in the food regime’, Journal of Peasant Studies 37: 609–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, C. A. 2007. ‘Democratization, international knowledge institutions, and global governance’, Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions 20: 325–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, D. 2004. ‘Negotiating international framework agreements in the global textile, garment and footware sector’, Global Social Policy 4, 2: 215–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mol, A. P. J. 2007. ‘Boundless biofuels? Between environmental sustainability and vulnerability’, Sociologia Ruralis 47: 297–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mosse, D. 2005. Cultivating Development: an ethnography of aid policy and practice. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Oakland Institute (OI). 2011. Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa. Country Report: Sierra Leone. Oakland, CA: The Oakland Institute.Google Scholar
Ponte, S. 2002. ‘The “Latte Revolution”? Regulation, markets and consumption in the global coffee chain’, World Development 30: 1099–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porter, M. E. & Kramer, M. R.. 2006. ‘The link between competitive advantage and corporate responsibility’, Harvard Business Review 84, 6: 1–14.Google Scholar
Raikes, P. & Gibbon, P.. 2000. ‘“Globalisation” and African Export Crop Agriculture’, Journal of Peasant Studies 27: 50–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redclift, M. 1987. Sustainable Development: Exploring the Contradictions. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Richards, P. 1986. Coping with Hunger: Hazard and Experiment in an African Rice Farming System. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Richardson, B. 2010. ‘Big Sugar in southern Africa: rural development and the perverted potential of sugar/ethanol exports’, Journal of Peasant Studies 37: 917–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Round Table on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB). 2010. RSB Principles and Criteria. In RSB-STD-01-001 (Version 2.0). Lausanne, Switzerland: EPFL.Google Scholar
Scarlat, N. & Dallemand, J.-F.. 2011. ‘Recent developments of biofuels/bioenergy sustainability certification: a global overview’, Energy Policy: 1–17.Google Scholar
Searchinger, T., Heimlich, R., Houghton, R. A., Dong, F., Elobeid, A., Fabiosa, J., Tokgoz, S., Hayes, D. & Yu, T.-H.. 2008. ‘Use of U.S. croplands for biofuels increases greenhouse gases through emissions from land-use change’, Science 319: 1238–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sellies, F. P. J. and Wanders, J. A. M.. 1996. Who pays the price? The production and marketing of coffee and cocoa in Sierra Leone under structural adjustment. Nijmegen Studies in Development and Cultural Change 23.Google Scholar
Teuscher, P., Grüninger, B. & Ferdinand, N.. 2006. ‘Risk management in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM): Lessons learnt from the case of GMO-free soybeans’, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management 13: 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Sierra Leone. 2004. Report of the Sierra Leone Truth & Reconciliation Commission, Vol. 2, Chapter 2, <http://www.sierra-leone.org/Other-conflict/TRCVolume2.pdf>, accessed 8.8.2012.,+accessed+8.8.2012.>Google Scholar
Tschakert, P. 2009. ‘Recognizing and nurturing artisanal mining as a viable livelihood’, Resources Policy 34, 1–2: 24–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turay, A. & Conteh, A.. 2010. ‘Sierra Leone signs US$400 m agriculture MOU’, Awareness Times, 11 February 2010, Freetown. <www.news.sl/drwebsite/publish/article_200514527.shtml>>Google Scholar
United Nations (UN). 2004. United Nations Transitional Appeal for Relief and Recovery: Sierra Leone, 2004. Freetown: UN.Google Scholar
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 2011. Human Development Report, 2011. New York, NY: UNDP.Google Scholar
Unruh, J. D. & Turray, H.. 2006. ‘Land tenure, food security and investment in postwar Sierra Leone’, LSP Working Paper 22. Rome: FAO.Google Scholar
Utting, P. 2005. ‘Corporate responsibility and the movement of business’, Development in Practice 15, 3–4: 375–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Utting, P. and Clapp, J., eds. 2008. Corporate Accountability and Sustainable Development. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vermeulen, S. & Cotula, L.. 2010. ‘Over the heads of local people: consultation, consent and recompense in large-scale land deals for biofuels projects in Africa’, Journal of Peasant Studies 37, 4: 899–916.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vidal, J. 2010. ‘EU biofuels significantly harming food production in developing countries’, The Guardian, 15 February 2010, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/15/biofuels-food-production-developing-countries>, accessed 28.7.2012.,+accessed+28.7.2012.>Google Scholar
Watts, M. 2009. ‘The southern question: agrarian questions of labour and capital’, in Akram-Lodhi, A. H. & Kay, C., eds. Peasants and Globalization: political economy, rural transformation and the agrarian question. London: Routledge, 262–87.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2007. World Development Report, 2008: agriculture for development. Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2011. Rising Global Interest in Farmland: can it yield sustainable and equitable benefits? Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar