L'impiego di mais per la produzione di bioetanolo per autotrazione: una valutazione dei potenziali impatti sul sistema agroalimentare mondiale

Bio-energies are a very hot topic currently widely discussed at many levels. International organizations, different countries, different political parties together with scientists and economists or simple expert often have opinions which are obviously conflicting. The aim of this paper is to present a critical analysis which can lead to potential solutions to the dilemma on the competition between new utilizations for corn, one of the most important cereals in the world: the growing demand form the energy sector; the most traditional use for feeding humans and animals. The effort is to approach this topic from the production standpoint and to assess the potential of the agricultural sector in comparison with the current and future needs stemming from the energy and the nutritional market. This first result shows the current inadequacies of the world agricultural system in all the different hypothesis, whatever the development of bio-fuels might be. The increase of the demand of corn related to production of bio-ethanol makes it even more difficult for the agricultural system to react positively with a growth from the side of the supply