SERI is co-organising an expert panel at this year’s Global Forum for Food and Agriculture, Berlin. SERI’s Honorary President, Joachim H. Spangenberg, will discuss the concept and reality of bioeconomy with Peter Gerhardt (denkhausbremen), Jutta Kill (World Rainforest Movement), and Mogan Ody (Via Campesina).
No bioeconomy without agroecology, planetary boundaries, and right to food as guard rails
Expert Panel #11, 11:30–13:00 hours, 17 January 2025
The bioeconomy alone can achieve neither a post-fossil, climate-smart economy nor secure world food security; it is not a one size fits all solution. Whether it can make a relevant positive contribution or, on the contrary, will have a counter-productive impact depends on the framework conditions. To date, the conceptual openness and lack of international minimum standards are opposed to this. Among the diverse international bioeconomy agendas, the globalised agro-industrial approach prevails and thus unchecked biomass consumption. So far, local agro-ecological concepts have hardly played any role. Ecological and social resources are ruthlessly exploited for the short-term profits of a small number of people. Conflicts of interests between profits, renunciation of fossil raw materials, protection of the environment and biodiversity, the right to food and the protection of human rights are among the major challenges facing the bioeconomy.
The fact is that the limited resource of biomass is already being overused around the globe. Deforestation and displacement are the consequence. Two million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction.
The expert panel will address the question of how a bioeconomy must be designed so that it can be part of a socio-ecological transformation and not just remain a green-coloured false solution. These and other aspects will be discussed by international and national long-standing experts as well as those directly affected by the bioeconomy.
