01 If Zambia (currently with 6.22 ha/person and GDP US$12.2 billion) used, for example, 20 million hectares for biofuels the country would still have 4.57 Ha/person, still above many rich countries including Brazil (4.23 ha/person and US$1499 billion GDP), USA (3.17 ha/person and US$14430 billion GDP), South Africa (2.48 ha/person and US$280.6 billion GDP), France (1.0 ha/person and US$2666 billion GDP), China (0.72 ha/person and US$4814 billion GDP), Switzerland (0.54 ha/person and US$489.8 billion GDP), Italy (0.52 ha/person and US$2114 billion GDP), Germany (0.43 ha/person and US$3273 billion GDP), UK (0.4 ha/person and US$2224 billion GDP), Belgium (0.28 ha/person and US$ 466.9 billion GDP), Japan (0.3 ha/person and US$5108 billion GDP), Netherlands (0.25 ha/person and US$799 billion GDP), Hong Kong (0.02 and US$211.3 billion GDP) and Singapore (0.01 ha/person and US$ billion GDP)?
Meanwhile Zambia would earn a minimum of US$200 billion annually from mainstream biofuels products alone if this amount of land is used, thus reducing poverty levels which currently run at 86% and reduce urbanization which currently stands at 35%.
The revenue would rise to well over this amount if other upstream and downstream products are taken into account.
02 The mine dumps in Zambia on the Copperbelt and North Western province collectively occupy about 300,000 hectares of land? These dump areas may never be used for other meaningful productive activities and Zambia is a NET looser from the industry. Zambia would earn more than US$3 billion annually from this size of land if used for biofuels production.
03 According to various studies, 100 million tons of grain were reported to be diverted to make biofuel in 2008 (especially in the USA), but over seven times as much (760 million tons) were used to feed animals to produce meat?
Depending on the type of animal, it takes up to, and sometimes more than, 10 plant calories to deliver 1 meat calorie. Meat consumption is therefore by far the biggest waste of grain globally, and the UN is encouraging the world to eat less meat to fight climate change.
