Grey Series - Part 7: Bioeconomy - the intelligent way

As part of an extensive project on food security in sub-Saharan countries (using Ethiopia, Nigeria and Ghana as examples), we have been able to gain numerous systemic insights through qualitative, participatory, explorative stakeholder modelling and a quantitative simulation model on biomass, money and information flows, taking into account socalled megatrends and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

According to this, classical consulting approaches, which recommend increasing agricultural productivity in African (and other developing) countries through the use of machinery, pesticides (in combination with seeds from multinational corporations) and artificial fertilizers on large fields, are, viewed in a systemic context, an aberration.

Indeed, land productivity should be increased and more land should be used, but the labour intensity in agriculture should be maintained against the background of global automation and digitalisation of other sectors and fatal urbanisation. Cultivation practices should be resilient with legumes, agroforestry, a recirculation also of human biomass, etc. without dependence on multinational corporations and with a minimization of vulnerability to weather extremes (floods and droughts caused by climate change).

Following the primacy of self-sufficiency through state-guaranteed prices, export goods should not be marketed internationally according to price, but according to the criterion of sustainability with appropriate labels.

The "Grey Series": with the "grey series" we offer the public an attractive, readable format that summarizes insights form our research work and the action to be taken. Our 'grey series' based on the term 'grey literature'.

Here you can downlaod the paper directly. Here you will find some additional papers.