Fuel vs. food? Climate shocks, biofuel expansion, and the future of global food security

The expansion of biofuel production has generated debate over its potential trade-off with food security, particularly regarding land diversion, rising food prices, and climate-related agricultural stress. This study utilizes panel data from 5 emerging (BRICS) and 7 advanced economies (G7) employing Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MM-QR) and Panel-Corrected Standard Errors (PCSE) for robustness to examine the association between biofuel production and agricultural total-factor productivity, crop value, and global food security during the period 2012-2022. Grounded in bioeconomy transition theory, induced innovation theory, the Porter hypothesis, and sustainable intensification, the empirical evidence indicates that biofuel expansion does not create a homogeneous food–fuel trade-off; instead, its associations vary across development and performance regimes. Biofuel production is positively associated with crop value in both groups but shows contrasting productivity associations, particularly across quantiles. Temperature anomalies exhibit heterogeneous associations with agricultural outcomes, while food prices are more strongly associated with food security. In line with induced innovation theory, innovation capacity is positively associated with several agricultural outcomes, while the climate–innovation interaction indicates heterogeneous adaptive associations across country groups. The differing associations of environmental policy stringency are broadly consistent with the conditional predictions of the Porter hypothesis, rather than indicating uniform regulatory benefits. Overall, the findings suggest that the relationship between biofuel expansion and food-system performance is conditional on development stage, climate exposure, innovation capacity, environmental policy stringency, and food-price conditions.