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6 India’s Bioeconomy and the Ambition over “Wastelands”
by its critics, but only to operational considerations among dominant actors or the
revision of over-optimistic ambitions. It means the agribusiness coalition has free
room to continue to try and experiment on the rural poor. It may potentially follow
its Jatropha 2.0 with a Jatropha 3.0—or eventually change the crop but keep the same
approach, until their power becomes seriously contested and a policy change occurs.
6.4 Conclusions
6.4.1 Key Insights
India has developed one of the world’s most ambitious biofuel agendas, yet perhaps
the one that has fallen the shortest of its goals. Sugarcane-ethanol production is on
the rise, but it has little room for expansion due to India’s growing sugar demand
and lack of additional arable land available. Meanwhile, the large-scale jatrophabiodiesel endeavor has been disastrous both from a planning and social perspectives.
Its widespread deployment on public lands and smallholder contracts has left India’s
rural poor mostly worse off while failing to generate commercial production.
Four interrelated reasons can explain the choices and outcomes of India’s
biofuel—and, broadly, bioeconomy—strategy so far. First, domestic public policies have been the main driving force. Although international demand (notably from
the EU and the US) has helped attract foreign investment, its role is comparably
minor. In the ethanol case, the policy primarily builds upon the pre-existing sugarcane sector. Policy instruments do not significantly attempt to alter production chains
in that agroindustry. That is different in the biodiesel case, where there is a high level
of policy steering. The biodiesel policy attempts to create a whole new production
chain, attracting private biofuel and agricultural technology industries, deregulating
access to land, and actively promoting large-scale feedstock cultivation on so-called
“wastelands.” In this context, although private investors and smallholders can benefit
from this policy, they essentially are instruments to help fulfill a government strategy.
However, unlike in the Brazilian case, there are no well-defined social inclusion
requirements in place.
Second, there have been problematic assumptions underlying this government
strategy. The scarcity of arable land and food resources to divert for biofuel production has limited the country’s options. This shortage has led the Indian government’s focus to marginal lands and a crop that could allegedly produce well under
sub-optimal agroclimatic conditions. However, regarding such lands as unused and
available proved shortsighted. It largely overlooked local resource uses, as well as
jatropha’s water requirements. Disagreements with rural dwellers, in turn, resulted
in boycotts or even sabotage of jatropha cultivation, leading to a waste of public
money. Furthermore, there was excessive optimism about feedstock productivity.
Naive overestimations on jatropha yields resulted in overly high expectations, and a
whole plan was envisaged based on those assumptions. When reality proved different,
6 India’s Bioeconomy and the Ambition over “Wastelands”
by its critics, but only to operational considerations among dominant actors or the
revision of over-optimistic ambitions. It means the agribusiness coalition has free
room to continue to try and experiment on the rural poor. It may potentially follow
its Jatropha 2.0 with a Jatropha 3.0—or eventually change the crop but keep the same
approach, until their power becomes seriously contested and a policy change occurs.
6.4 Conclusions
6.4.1 Key Insights
India has developed one of the world’s most ambitious biofuel agendas, yet perhaps
the one that has fallen the shortest of its goals. Sugarcane-ethanol production is on
the rise, but it has little room for expansion due to India’s growing sugar demand
and lack of additional arable land available. Meanwhile, the large-scale jatrophabiodiesel endeavor has been disastrous both from a planning and social perspectives.
Its widespread deployment on public lands and smallholder contracts has left India’s
rural poor mostly worse off while failing to generate commercial production.
Four interrelated reasons can explain the choices and outcomes of India’s
biofuel—and, broadly, bioeconomy—strategy so far. First, domestic public policies have been the main driving force. Although international demand (notably from
the EU and the US) has helped attract foreign investment, its role is comparably
minor. In the ethanol case, the policy primarily builds upon the pre-existing sugarcane sector. Policy instruments do not significantly attempt to alter production chains
in that agroindustry. That is different in the biodiesel case, where there is a high level
of policy steering. The biodiesel policy attempts to create a whole new production
chain, attracting private biofuel and agricultural technology industries, deregulating
access to land, and actively promoting large-scale feedstock cultivation on so-called
“wastelands.” In this context, although private investors and smallholders can benefit
from this policy, they essentially are instruments to help fulfill a government strategy.
However, unlike in the Brazilian case, there are no well-defined social inclusion
requirements in place.
Second, there have been problematic assumptions underlying this government
strategy. The scarcity of arable land and food resources to divert for biofuel production has limited the country’s options. This shortage has led the Indian government’s focus to marginal lands and a crop that could allegedly produce well under
sub-optimal agroclimatic conditions. However, regarding such lands as unused and
available proved shortsighted. It largely overlooked local resource uses, as well as
jatropha’s water requirements. Disagreements with rural dwellers, in turn, resulted
in boycotts or even sabotage of jatropha cultivation, leading to a waste of public
money. Furthermore, there was excessive optimism about feedstock productivity.
Naive overestimations on jatropha yields resulted in overly high expectations, and a
whole plan was envisaged based on those assumptions. When reality proved different,