Bio-fuel and resilience

Today I attended a lecture given by Alan Bullin with the topic ``Biofuels in the Asia-Pacific'', which is just a general review of the situation of biofuel legislation, adoption and application in developed and developing world. But my question would be, how biofuel crops affect the resilience of farmers who adopted them out of economic interest?

I asked this because I thought of farmers in China. If they know this is going to make money you can bet they will begin to plant sugarcanes overnight. However, their relatively slow rate to access relevant information means they are very likely to encounter market failures and have losses. On the other hand, the question is also about long-term perspectives. If one day we suddenly do not need biofuel and fossil fuels anymore (invention of safe and cheap hydrogen/nuclear/solar/you-name-it energy technologies), will the farmers be able to quickly and easily turn to other income sources?

Dr. Bullin's answer to the questions, as I perceived, is that the market will determine what the farmers plant, the adoption of new energy will not be sudden, but a gradual process. The competition between various biofuel crops means the farmers will not be trapped in one crop and cannot get themselves out. They can always turn to another kind of biofuel. Of course, in the market, there is always risk.

I did not mention resilience or China's immature market in my question, which may change his answer a bit. On a second thought, the farmers may not always have alternatives due to climate and hydrology restrictions. I still would like to know whether farmers can turn their sugar cane field into, say, potato garden quickly enough. There have already been some studies on biofuels and resilience. Many of them expressed optimistic evaluation of this new technology concerning long-term gains and resilience, stating their positive role in the conservation of forest and reduction of carbon. However, I do think there is some negative issues that should be scrutinised carefully, for example, increased food price [1], changed land use and threat to natural area/food production [2], and Fairtrade concerns.

1. [Kill king corn](http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/449637a). Nature 449, 637 doi: 10.1038/449637a (2007).
2. [Fuelling controversy -- can biofuels slow the speed of climate change?](http://www.panos.org.uk/PDF/reports/climatetoolkit1.pdf)