Agrofuels (also known as biofuels) are promoted as an alternative to fossil fuels, supposedly as a low carbon solution to climate change, grown from agricultural crops. Across Africa, Asia and Latin America, agricultural land and forests are being destroyed daily for agrofuel plantations on a vast scale.

Biodiesel is produced from crops such as soya, palm oil and jatropha, while bioethanol is grown from crops such as sugar cane and maize. To produce high yields, these crops require fertile and well-watered land, competing with agricultural land and forests. A number of studies have shown that agrofuel production actually releases far more emissions than the burning of fossil fuels.

The majority of Africa's land is communally owned. Corporations are gaining access to these lands and forests on which farmers, communities and indigenous peoples have lived for generations. This is land which people need, now and in the future, in order to grow their own food and protect their forests as they have done up to now. All forests are critical for maintaining the planet's biodiversity and storing carbon, that same carbon which proponents of agrofuels claim to save.

Our Work

Gaia has been working with partners in the African Biodiversity Network to investigate and expose the hunger, landlessness, community and ecosystem rights abuses and deforestation caused by this large-scale African Agrofuels land grab.