Food Security and Bioenergy: Approaches to assess a complex relationship – Experiences from FAO's work in Tanzania

Date:  March 30, 2009 Time:  4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Location:  1106 Mechanical Engineering Phone:  920-253-5061 Email:  switmer@wisc.edu Web Address:  http://www.sage.wisc.edu/weston/ Contact:  Sarah Witmer Sponsor:  Please see event description for sponsor information

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A video of this lecture is available to view online.


Roy F. Weston Distinguished Lecture Series in Sustainability

Andreas von Brandt of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization will be visiting the University of Wisconsin as part of the Roy F. Weston Lecture Series in Sustainability. He will be giving a presentation about the innovative approach the FAO has taken to measure the impact of bioenergy on a country’s food security.

photo credit: ©FAO/Giulio Napolitano

Abstract: The importance of agriculture and energy in developing countries are crucial for growth. While bioenergy provides the cheapest and most accessible energy carrier for rural areas, the world's attention is focused on liquid biofuels. Although these competing demands for agricultural production may present a conflict of interest, it is also one of the few opportunities for investment in many poor countries. Therefore, in cooperation with government, private sector and affected farmers, FAO has taken a pragmatic approach in strengthening developing countries' capabilities to make the best out of these opportunities. The Bioenergy and Food Security Project (BEFS) has developed an analytical tool to quantify the bioenergy impact on a country's food security. The interdisciplinary methodology assesses in different stand-alone modules such diverse elements as land suitability, land use planning and administration, biofuel production costs, forecasts on future food needs, sector-wide macroeconomic effects and the implications for food availability and access at the household level. The lecture will present FAO's approach and put the initial results into the socio-economic context of Tanzania, the first of four pilot countries for the BEFS project

Bio: Andreas von Brandt, MA, LLM is Coordinator of the Bioenergy and Food Security Project (BEFS) at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome (Italy). Andreas joined FAO in June 2006 as Assistant Project Manager of the Right to Food Unit. Before coming to FAO, Mr. von Brandt negotiated the Right to Food guidelines on behalf of the German Foreign Office, headed the public diplomacy and economic section of its mission to Pakistan and was in charge of UN Specialized Agencies, rural development and food security in the German Foreign Office (2001-06). Prior to that he has been consulting for the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and InWent on rights-based approaches to development, public sector and justice reform and human rights. Andreas holds two 5-year degrees, in Political Science and in Law and a Masters in International Law. He was a Fulbright scholar at the Washington College of Law at American University in 2000.


Co-sponsored by: Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE), the WAGE Governing Global Energy Research Collaborative, UW Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.