Eduardo Trigo: Biorefineries in Latin America: Status Quo and perspectives
Eduardo Trigo, of the Argentinian Ministry of Agriculture, gave the next presentation about biorefineries in Latin America. He started with an overview of the regional potential of the bioeconomy. The bioeconomy concept is considered to be very important for the Latin American and Caribbean countries with regards to the resource availability of soil, water and bio diversity, which have already proven their efficiency as producer of food and biomass. The bioeconomy concept offers also promising chances for science, technology and business. Globally seen Latin America is a central actor in the food trade and because of its natural resources as well a central actor in terms of environmental quality and global sustainability (water and forest resources). Yet still poverty and food insecurity are a challenge for the economic growth and employment and these inequalities are not only visible from state to state, but are also appearing within a single country. According to Mr Trigo the bioeconomy concept can be a new vision for the relation agriculture/industry and for a sustainable development thereof.
In Latin American the sector of large-scale biorefineries is dominated by Brazil, Argentina and Colombia meanwhile in almost every Latin American country developments are happening. The most important feedstocks are sugar cane, palm oil, soy and corn.
The development of small-scale biorefineries is considerably less and there only a few experiences with realisations have been made so far in Latin America. The challenge identified by Mr Trigo is how to show in an economic analysis all the benefits that small-scale biorefineries are generating. The most critical point is the low output number which has to be looked at not only with regards to biorefineries yet as well with regards to the bioeconomy concept for developing countries in general.
That’s why Mr Trigo pointed at the different role of small-scale compared to large-scale solutions for the local (rural) development, especially for regions that have problems with energy supply. He identified social (communal capacity building), economic (innovative products and processes, jobs, additional income, use of residues) and environmental (emission reductions, elimination of contamination sources, circular economy) factors.
Concluding Mr Trigo showed a video of an operator of a small-scale biorefinery in Argentina.