Sugarcane Industry Expansion and Changing Rural Labour Regimes in Mato Grosso do Sul (2000–2016)

The objective of this chapter is to assess how the expanding production of biofuels as part of an emerging bioeconomy affects existing social inequalities in labour and land relations. A case study method was applied to investigate the growth of the sugarcane industry in Mato Grosso do Sul between 2000 and 2016. The analytical framework of social inequalities and a rural labour regime approach guided the research and data analysis. This chapter shows that the expansion of biofuels was propelled by an entanglement of global dynamics such as land grabbing and green development discourses, as well as national policies that fostered bioethanol production. The expansion of the sugarcane industry in Mato Grosso do Sul led to changes in existing labour regimes. The most striking changes were the increased but temporal semi-proletarianisation of peasants in agrarian reform settlements and the double exclusion of the Guarani-Kaiowá Indigenous people.

Global Inequalities and Extractive Knowledge Production in the Bioeconomy

Research funding is pivotal for the implementation of the bioeconomy. Drawing on approaches inspired by world-systems theory, this chapter argues that existing bioeconomy strategies reproduce the global unequal production of knowledge: North America and Western Europe not only define the direction of the bioeconomy, but also claim to be the centres of technological knowledge production. In contrast, (semi-)peripheral countries remain raw material suppliers with less complex technologies. This strengthens the dominant form of extractive knowledge production in agriculture. By using the term ‘extractive knowledge’, I refer to research and development that serves agro-industrial resource extraction in (semi-)peripheral countries for export. I use Brazilian agricultural research on soybean to show that extractive knowledge exacerbates the socio-ecological problems that the bioeconomy is purported to solve. A sustainable bioeconomy requires a shift in research funding to alternative approaches such as those being developed by social movements in agroecology and food sovereignty.

Contextualizing the Bioeconomy in an Unequal World: Biomass Sourcing and Global Socio-Ecological Inequalities

What is the bioeconomy and how does the bioeconomy relate to socio-ecological inequalities? With a focus on biomass sourcing, production and bioenergy, this chapter aims to answer these two questions with the whole book in mind. First, we introduce the conceptual, geographical and methodological focus of the volume. Drawing on political ecology and world systems theory, we develop an analytical lens for the study of global socio-ecological inequalities. Against this background, we sketch out the main findings of the contributions, which focus on conceptual questions, bioeconomy policies and agendas in different countries, as well as the reconfigurations and continuities of socio-ecological inequalities in and beyond the agrarian sector from the local to the global level. The contributions offer insights into different countries in South America, Southeast Asia and Europe as well as into the interrelations between different countries and regions. Finally, the outlook identifies and discusses four areas of further research.

Buruh Siluman: The Making and Maintaining of Cheap and Disciplined Labour on Oil Palm Plantations in Indonesia

Increasing attention has been paid to working conditions on Indonesian oil palm plantations. Reports have documented decent work deficits on plantations in Indonesia that are associated with cheap and disciplined labour as an important feature of the plantation labour regime. This chapter focuses on female labour on oil palm plantations. Drawing on insights from feminist theories, the coloniality/modernity school of thought, as well as literature on racial capitalism, this chapter argues that female labour on plantations, often called buruh siluman, plays a central role in the making and maintaining of these kinds of labour relations.

Neoliberal Bioeconomies? Co-constructing Markets and Natures

The bioeconomy is a key low-carbon transition pathway to address climate change promoted by a range of policymakers. The bioeconomy has been defined as a market-based strategy for dealing with environmental problems, largely because it seeks to insert bio-based products, fuels, and materials into prevailing economic infrastructures and institutions, rather than challenging underlying capitalist logics. As such, it can be seen as a ‘neoliberal’ response to climate change that reflects theoretical debates about the neoliberalization of nature. Such criticism, however, tends to treat markets as aberrations of nature and disrupting notions of a pristine, untouched natural state. In contrast, I argue that analysing the bioeconomy reveals the co-construction of markets and natures, rather than the imposition of markets on natures. Opening up criticism helps to provide an understanding of how else the bioeconomy could be organized and of the sorts of socio-material arrangements that we view as supportable.

A Player Bigger Than Its Size: Finnish Bioeconomy and Forest Policy in the Era of Global Climate Politics

Over the last two decades, the bioeconomy has emerged as a key political idea in framing a low-carbon transition. Bioeconomy is particularly important in Finland due to the country’s large forestry sector. The bioeconomy has reframed the Finnish forestry industry as sustainable and placed forestry at the centre of the national economy. This has led to the constitution of a new forest policy regime: the bioeconomy regime. However, in the era of climate mitigation, forests are expected to serve as carbon sinks. Increasing the harvesting of forests, a Finnish bioeconomy policy, would decrease the size of forest sinks, while increasing net emissions from forests. This aspect of climate science has challenged the Finnish bioeconomic strategy. This chapter analyses the emergence of the bioeconomy regime and how the regime has been challenged by climate science. Finally, it examines the communication strategies used and the status of the Finnish bioeconomy on the world stage.

Sustaining the European Bioeconomy: The Material Base and Extractive Relations of a Bio-Based EU-Economy

This chapter explores the implications of a growing need for biomass inputs for the transnational relations of the European bioeconomy. In order to do so, transnational material flows into the European bioeconomy are analysed from a world systems perspective. This puts the European bioeconomy in relation to extractive economies mainly in the (semi-)peripheries of the capitalist world system. Most of the biomass consumed in the EU today is produced domestically, but imports represent 16% of total supply. Material flows in the form of commodity imports to the EU are analysed as extractive relations between the EU and its biomass suppliers. As the potential for increased domestic production in the EU is small, biomass imports are expected to become even more important in the context of a growing bioeconomy. The extractive relations constituted by existing material flows call into question the social and ecological sustainability of bioeconomy transition.

Sugar-Cane Bioelectricity in Brazil: Reinforcing the Meta-Discourses of Bioeconomy and Energy Transition

This article analyses the contribution of sugar-cane bioelectricity to the distribution and diversification of power generation in Brazil. A transition is currently underway towards an energy mix characterized by natural gas and new renewable energy sources, mainly wind and solar. Energy security and industrial development priorities have created political and economic challenges for bioelectricity governance. However, meta-discourses of energy transition and bioeconomy are giving rise to selection pressures that are promoting institutional changes towards an expansion of the ethanol market. By using the multi-level perspective of transitions, this paper concludes that, given the technology in use for bioelectricity production, the critical financial state of the sugar-cane industry and the current priorities of the electricity marketing model, sugar-cane bioelectricity, which has a key role to play in the energy matrix, remains uncompetitive and dependent on specific public policies to support its expansion.

Territorial Changes Around Biodiesel: A Case Study of North-Western Argentina

As part of a recent global agrofuel boom, Argentina became one of the leading producers and exporters of biodiesel. To understand the socioecological implication of this growth, the first chapter considers the national context by exploring the legal framework and agrofuels initiatives. It then focuses on the territorial changes that occurred in north-western Argentina through a case study on the local impacts of the agroindustry. The research shows that biodiesel production in the north-western province of Santiago del Estero is associated with the expansion of monocropping and pesticides, forest destruction, the risk of water pollution and the appropriation of common goods. These processes contribute to the deterioration of the material basis of peasants and local communities and affect the ecological distribution of environmental costs. The research also shows that territorial changes involve symbolic dimensions that are connected to environmental appropriation as part of the process of accumulation.

Knowledge, Research, and Germany’s Bioeconomy: Inclusion and Exclusion in Bioenergy Funding Policies

Germany plays a protagonist role in promoting bioeconomy funding policies for research and innovation (R&I). Conceptualizing the role of (unequal) knowledge production in changing socio-energy systems with reference to energy justice research, Rosa Lehmann distils the role of bioenergy-related R&I funding and emphasizes that the national bioeconomy agenda has thus far failed to integrate and reinvigorate the knowledge and practices of civil society actors engaged in cooperative schemes promoting citizen-based bioenergy production. Lehmann argues that the inclusion of these experiences is fundamental to any bioeconomy agenda that not only aims to induce technological change but also to stimulate societal change.