In EU-27, the biomass consumption accounts approximately for 95.7 Mtoe, of which only a small part is used for biofuels, the rest for heat (40 Mtoe) and for electricity (48 Mtoe). If the renewable targets of the EU are to be met, an additional 120 Mtoe

45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

of biomass needs to be produced by 2020, which would have to be obtained mainly from additional forest resources, but also new sources such as aquatic biomass, and eventually imports that will have to meet sustainability criteria.

In the European Union, the utilized agricultural area (UAA) is 178.44 million of hectares (Mha) which represents 41 % of the whole EU27 territorial area, while arable land represents almost one-quarter of European territory (24 %). In Europe, it is estimated that approximately 2.5 Mha of agricultural land is dedicated to bio­energy crops for liquid biofuels (Aebiom 2012), which represents about 1.4 % of the utilized agriculture area (UAA). ‘The European Commission (2011) calculated that 17.5 million ha of land would be required to reach the 10 % biofuels target, which would amount to about 10 % of the total utilized agricultural area (UAA) in EU27’ (Panoutsou et al. 2011: 3).

For this reason, the biodiesel companies of different member states have invested in third countries and in particular in Africa, to produce vegetable oil from Jatropha. But in order to be sustainable, the use of biomass for fuel and energy purposes must not jeopardize European and third countries’ ability to secure its people’s food supply, nor should it prevent achieving environmental pri­orities such as protecting forests, preventing soil degradation and keeping a good ecological status of waters.

The European agricultural land for biodiesel is used to produce oilseed crops (rape — seed, sunflowers, soybean) which are the major feedstock used to produce biodiesel (Fig. 6). Increased demand for oils from biodiesel producers has become over the past few years one of the driving forces of the global vegetable oil market. Any changes in biofuel policies in the European Union and in the USA as well as any advances being made on the next generations of biofuels is bound to alter the demand of vegetable oils for non-food purposes. Furthermore, in the coming years, national biofuel poli­cies may also increasingly affect international trade in vegetable oils used as biodiesel feedstock as well as trade in biodiesel itself (OECD-FAO 2012).

At global level, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil, and palm oil are the most produced vegetable oils. According to USDA data (Fig. 7), the global produc­tion of palm oil accounted for 39 % of all vegetable oils in 2011, followed by soy­bean oil (33 %), rapeseed oil (18 %), and sunflower oil (11 %). Figure 7 shows that

60.00

50.00

40.00

30.00

20.00

10.00

the production of palm oil from 2000 to 2011 had a constant positive trend with an increase of 108 %. Remarkable results, in the same period, are also observed for rape — seed oil with an increase of 75 %, followed by sunflower (63 %) and soybean (59 %).

Although rapeseed oil and soybean oil are projected to remain the main feedstock, the use of palm oil is expected to more than double over the coming decade, with around 9 % of global palm oil production absorbed by the biofuel industry in 2021.

EU-27 and China are the world’s largest importers of vegetable oils, followed by India which shows an increase of 55 % respect to 2007. Despite Malaysia and Egypt being the countries with the highest increase of imports (81 and 73 %, respectively), their import levels are still low (USDA 2011). Indonesia, Malaysia, and Argentina have dominated the export market since 2007, even with Argentina’s decrease (-17 %) with respect to the previous years. Russia and Ucrania are the countries with the highest increase of exports (263 and 100 %, respectively), but their contri­bution to the export market remains marginal (USDA 2011).

Demand from the biodiesel industry is set to grow less than in the previous dec­ade when biofuel demand accelerated as policies were put in place. The use of vegetable oil for biodiesel is still expected to expand to 30 Mt, which corresponds to a 76 %increase over the 2009-2011 and raises the share of vegetable oil con­sumption used for world biodiesel production from 12 % in 2009-2011 to 16 % in 2021 (Fig. 8) (OECD-FAO 2012).

In the developed world, biodiesel demand should account for 73 % of total consumption growth. Biodiesel demand growth should continue to be lead by the European Union, where biofuel producers are expected to absorb 51 % of domes­tic vegetable oil up from 40 % in 2009-2011. Starting from a relatively small base, demand from the biodiesel industry is expected to almost double in the developing world, with growth in absolute terms not far behind the one projected in developed countries. Growth is expected in the traditional producers, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Argentina, but also in other parts of Asia (Thailand, India) and South America (Brazil, Colombia). Argentina further expands its export-oriented biodiesel indus­try, which, by 2021, could absorb 31 % of domestic vegetable oil output (OECD — FAO 2012).