The increase, from five to seven times, according to the scenarios of the International Energy Agency (IEA), world production of "green fuel" expected by 2030, is expected to upset the economy of production and trade Global agricultural and energy in the next ten to fifteen years. The mapping of this "new agricultural economy", in the words of Michel Griffon agronomist, is far from fixed.

The competitiveness of each sector (maize, sugarcane, oilseed rape and so on.), And therefore every region of the world depends on both its efficiency (which must be greater than the energy used to produce, transport, and so on.) its production costs, the ability of its players to take advantage, or protect themselves from global competition and the price of oil. Recent studies by the National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA) have shown that the majority of existing biofuels are competitive without subsidies, that beyond 80 dollars per barrel of oil. Distilleurs offer farmers and other calculations. "In this regard, the weight of lobbyists is such that it is almost impossible to obtain reliable data," notes a researcher with bitterness. The INRA, to avoid offending his tutelage, the Ministry of Agriculture, has publicly renounced communicate on these issues.

A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, one of the twelve members of the Fed, the US central bank, also cautions against excessive hopes of "farmers" in the Middle West. As distilleries that grow and multiply, investments become so heavy that their property passes from the hands of Cooperatives (100% in 1999) to those of oil companies, that do not hold 10% production in 2006. Farmers, even combined, are not able to cope with the wide variation in the course of ethanol, those related to oil. The concentration of production in farming areas also pose a problem of transport: ethanol does not pass through pipelines, we must send it by rail and road to the oil refineries.

These are located in ports, oil terminals near the oil majors may be tempted to import ethanol countries of the South, where agriculture is more competitive. "The question is how will allocate pension biofuels," observes the final Gitz Vincent, a researcher at the International Agency for Research on Environment and Development (CIRED).

The trade of ethanol (more easily transportable that biodiesel) is already an issue of international trade negotiations: the United States, the EU, Brazil, China, India and South Africa have opened, March 2, discussions on this subject within the UN framework. "There is an enormous unsaid in all this remark Michel Colombier, a researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (Iddri), we stated that there balance between energy policy and agricultural policy, then Energy concern that the push to import massively, and that agricultural policy is to protect our agriculture from global competition on these new opportunities. " Prior to rush on the first generation biofuels, returns and competitiveness uncertain, should we not wonder about the choice of channels to develop, and the pace of their growth? But for Mr. Tillous-Borde, "it is still at ABC for the second generation, it remains to be overcome enormous technological thresholds: nothing will happen for at least ten years. And we can not wait.