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The South African bioeconomy strategy did not clearly articulate the measurement framework to monitor the implementation of the strategy. This paper provides an analysis of bioeconomy patents, the most prolific organizations and citations at the EPO and USPTO for South Africa, BRICS, Egypt and Nigeria during the Ten-Year Innovation Plan 2008–2018. The terms 'biotechnology', 'medical technology', 'pharmaceuticals' and 'selected environment-related technologies' were used to search for patents. The OECD patents by technology, the EPO PATSTAT and the USPTO PatFT databases were used to map patents and citations. The results show that South Africa ranked last in the BRICS group but produced a higher number of patents than Egypt and Nigeria. The number of patents generally decreased for the selected countries except for China. The total citations for the selected countries was generally inconsistent. The important innovators for South Africa in the bioeconomy are mainly universities and public research institutions. A new fiscal approach to encourage knowledge application in bioeconomy in South Africa is required. Incentives from government that encourage collaboration between research institutions and industry to direct research with industry application are required. The study contributes to the development of metrics to monitor the bioeconomy in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing political interest in the development of biorefineries is being shaped by climate change and a need to develop economically viable substitutes (i.e., fuels, products and chemicals) to those produced in traditional oil refineries. The pulp and paper industry in Sweden has been stagnating and it is therefore potentially promising to integrate biorefining into its activities as one way of diversifying its business. Sweden has good prerequisites for a transition to a bioeconomy due to its natural geographic conditions, industry, and infrastructure. It has developed a bioeconomy strategy and piloted several biorefinery projects. At the same time, the deployment of biorefineries has been slow, and they have not reached commercial scale. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the current and future development of biorefineries in the context of the emerging bioeconomy in Sweden. It is based on a literature review, policy analysis, and ten interviews with bioeconomy experts. It maps key political and legal aspects, economic and raw material aspects, social and cognitive aspects, and technology and infrastructure aspects that facilitate and hinder the development and deployment of biorefineries in Sweden. This paper identifies four action points important to the development of biorefineries and the bioeconomy: (i) commitments - establish targets and policies that drive the transition; (ii) contradictions - improve alignment on visions, goals, and activities; (iii) capacity - build up infrastructure and competences to harness the potential; and (iv) collaboration - develop cooperation across sectors and between actors. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the bioeconomy has emerged as a key policy idea in liberal western states. This paper analyses the bioeconomy as a state strategy. By building on theoretical strands by Poulantzas, Moore, and Castán Broto, the paper argues that the bioeconomy has to be understood simultaneously as an accumulation strategy within the capitalist world‐ecology and as a transformative agenda through which tensions in the state space can be governed. The politics of bioeconomy do not concern its outright endorsement or rejection but the ways its contradictions are interpreted and articulated. The empirical part of the paper scrutinises the bioeconomy strategy adopted in Finland. Our main concern is that the bioeconomy strategy has been appropriated by the traditional forest industries in such a way that fails to address the problem of uneven development and ignores the potential of the bioeconomy as part of a transformative agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of bioeconomics covers all sectors of the economy, including agriculture, which supplies renewable resources: plants, animals, microorganisms and their processed products. The goal is a transition to an economy that is independent of fossil fuels and non-renewable resources. Agriculture and forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, as well as the conversion of biotechnological biomass and biological waste, are central to the multilateral new value chain. The processing industry uses renewable resources in various products, in particular, due to the industrial application of biotechnological and microbiological processes, especially in the chemical industry. This also applies to the food, woodworking, paper, construction, leather, and textile industries, as well as parts of the pharmaceutical and energy industries. Thus, the cyclic system and the storage of reusable waste are also included in the bioeconomic system. The aim of our study is to study the degree of development of sustainable value chains in bioeconomics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thai economic growth lags behind all other ASEAN countries because its export dependence along with the political and economic vulnerabilities. With the growing bioeconomy worldwide, Thailand needs a clear bioeconomy roadmap as a new growth engine for its economy. Four potential clusters to build bioeconomy in Thailand include the bioenergy, bio-based industry, bio-food and bio-agriculture, and bio-medicine and health. There are roadmaps for only the first two clusters. The paper discusses the potential bio-based products for the bio-food and bio-agriculture as well as bio-medicine and health and proposes the use of the Pracharath strategy to build bioeconomy in Thailand with the main objective of creating the sustainable economy. Since a smart community is a key driver for the sustainable economy, five steps to smart community proposed in the paper will immune communities in the rural area of Thailand, make them self-reliant, and remove the dependency culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the future, demand for livestock products will be influence by socio-economic factors, such as human health concerns and changing socio-cultural values. The humanity will be preoccupied for how know what eat and who can satisfy this demand and answer to this question. Today, on a global level livestock management is a multifunctional activity which has a direct role to generating food and income, can be a valuable asset, serving as a store of wealth, collateral for credit and an essential safety net during times of crises; livestock are also central to mixed farming system. The study from this scientifically paper is based on specific literature presented on the end of paper, and especially of own studies and researches of authors working group made inside the Post-Doctoral School financed by European Union for project with topics: "The Post-doctoral School of livestock Biodiversity and Food Biotechnologies based on Ecoeconomy and Bioeconomy for Ecosanogenesis". Are presented more new concepts, terms and methodologically schemes about sustainable development of rural farms. GNIR Holding develops these innovative ideas in context of knowledge based on bioeconomy for a most priority strategic national project and integrated through recently objectives of Lisabona 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Beside, it is underline the role of the animal science engineer, very complex and involves a great responsibility. This fact means that the animal science engineer must be able to create and develop bioengineering and biotechnologies which can solve the food problem both aspects: quantitative and qualitative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While bioeconomy as a concept has been used by many countries in the world in policy and strategy development not many countries in Asia have used this concept. This paper discusses how Asian countries can use biotechnology and various omics technologies to address their pressing problems and develop strong bioeconomies. The paper explores the potential and limitations for using different technologies in Asia and points out that as these technologies can be applied in different sectors ranging from aquaculture to forestry. They will enable Asia to meet the problems in effective utilisation of biomass and address critical problems like food security. These applications will result in economic gains and better returns on investments. While the potential to reconcile industrial production with food needs is yet to be fully realised as these technologies can enable better utilisation of waste and related biomaterials by turning them into feed stocks, they provide many opportunities to Asian countries in meeting diverse needs and reconciling multiple demands from similar resources. Application of biotechnology, omics technologies, synthetic biology and green chemistry can be the enabling technologies for the biorevolution that may usher in better bioeconomies in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To transform developing and least developing countries into industrialised ones, biotechnology could be deployed along the value chain, to provide support to the development of the bio-based industries in such a way to ensure sustainability of the sector and to reduce negative environmental impacts that might otherwise occur. In agribusiness development, for instance, interventions could start from inputs and agricultural mechanization, modern processing technologies, packaging of perishable products, the promotion of food safety in the processing and regulatory environment; and interventions to improve competitiveness and productivity. Worth over USD 300 billion in revenue, the role of the biotechnology goes beyond industrial growth, since it provides opportunities for progress towards many of the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). This paper reviews the status of industrial biotechnology as it relates to inclusive and sustainable industrial development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This policy-oriented opinion paper, which has taken the form of a Manifesto, is co-authored by scientists and engineers from Southern European Union countries that are presently experiencing deep and complex systemic crises: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus. With their Manifesto, the authors advocate the adoption of a new development model, focusing on the target of sustainable bioeconomy, around which other development themes and topics will crystallize. Implementing this model will act as a locomotive to get the economies and societies of these countries efficiently out of their crises, and smoothly into greener post-crisis pastures. The proposal is articulated in ten critical steps or theses for immediate action by the policy- and decision-makers, as well as industry, markets and other key actors within this troubled area of the European Mezzogiorno. Corroborating evidence of these theses comes in the form of short reports or “letters” on the key topics of this Manifesto from the countries and regions concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concepts of sustainability and sustainable development (SD) are often used by policy-makers, stakeholders and the private sector, as a ‘selling point’ for their agendas and goals. Thanks to the wide, but also self-interpretive definition, the concepts allow various actors to make related pledges without necessarily undertaking any significant changes to their existing policies, strategies and actions. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the meaning of and approaches to sustainability and SD, which are being adopted and/or reformulated in the newly emerging bioeconomy policy debate of the European Union (EU). Understanding these concepts is crucially important given the growing importance of and adherence to bioeconomy-based policies and strategies by both individual EU Member States and the EU as a whole. The way bioeconomy policies perceive sustainability and SD as concepts will have profound implications not only on a practical level for policy implementation, but also on a conceptual level and for theoretical discourses surrounding sustainability and SD. The policy and narrative analyses illustrate that the current EU bioeconomy policy leans strongly towards prudentially conservationist, utilitarian and instrumental approaches to SD, as well as towards weak sustainability. We argue that a balance between environmental, social and economic dimensions – as introduced in the Brundtland report – is missing within the EU bioeconomy policy framework, since economic dimensions and concerns prevail over environmental and social dimensions. In the light of possible negative consequences of biomass production, we foresee an urgent need to define and broaden the scope of bioeconomy, as well as to include environmental and social concerns and safeguards. To tackle the shared challenges and constraints modern societies face today, a broader definition of sustainability needs to be adopted within the EU bioeconomy policy framework. Issues such as social justice, fairness and equity, social and environmental safeguards and local traditional knowledge in various concerned sectors should be taken into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proponents of Jatropha curcas portrayed the crop as a 'sustainable biofuel' that was less threatening to food security and forests than other energy crops, creating a reputation that helped jatropha projects to multiply quickly throughout the global South. However, many jatropha initiatives failed to thrive and ultimately collapsed. This paper investigates how actors involved with jatropha in Kenya explained their visions of bioenergy at two points in time. In 2009, when many activities were beginning, I interviewed small-scale farmers, NGO staff, researchers, donors, government officials and members of the private sector about their expectations of jatropha as an energy crop. In late 2013, after jatropha activities in the country had dwindled, I re-interviewed many of the same individuals about their current views and their explanations of the events that had transpired since the initial fieldwork. Synthesizing these two sets of representations provides insight into how biofuel projects have been constructed, negotiated and renegotiated. Early hopes for jatropha rested on the belief that it could achieve many goals simultaneously, but when it failed to meet expectations proponents chose between two strategies: (1) 'unbundling' these goals to pursue separately the various aspirations they had initially attached to jatropha; and (2) seeking a new means of achieving the same bundle of goals. Understanding the choices made by jatropha actors in Kenya contributes to knowledge on the political ecology of biofuels and responsible innovation, and may signal patterns to come as even greater expectations are attached to multi-use feedstocks in pursuit of the bioeconomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a strong interest in the EU to promote the bioeconomy sector within the EU 2020 strategy. It is thus necessary to assure a sound sustainability framework. This paper reviews international and European sustainability initiatives mainly for biomass for bioenergy. The basic and advanced sustainability indicators are identified and described with particular attention to those points without agreement between stakeholders. Based on the state of the discussion, some suggestions to enhance the sustainable development of the bioeconomy sector are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the surplus production models of Verhulst-Schaefer and Gompertz-Fox that are applied to the European Hake fishery to develop static as well as dynamic frameworks to investigate the sustainability properties of the stock, optimal utilization of the resource and the management of the fishery. To illustrate the approach through which long-run sustainability can achieve an optimum exploitation of the fishery, a conventional economic model is combined with a biological population growth model to develop a deterministic bioeconomic model. The parameters of the bioeconomic model are estimated using empirical data of catch and effort of the European Hake fishery. Standard reference points are analyzed and tax policies are introduced to attain the standard reference points. In order to achieve maximum profit from the fishery, optimal steady state solutions are determined for separate discount rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of the rural area, of the rural community respectively, constitutes a complex and uptodate research subject because it relies on two basic elements closely interdependent: the source of sustainable resources that may generate development and, the inhabitants of the rural area reprezenting both factor of action and consume as beneficiaries of the development. In this context, the present approach to conduct research leading to the design of strategic options for the development and diversification of the rural economy according to the principles of bio and ecoeconomy is justified and will try to meet the challenge of identifying those elements that lead to integration of the main activities in rural areas (agriculture, aquaculture, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, etc..), and to diversification of the rural economy while maintaining a balance between the need to preserve and promote rural tradition and impending modernization of rural life. It catalyzes the need to identify specific solutions to rural development imposed by its characteristics, by the change across all activities in rural areas and frequent reorganizations, or continuous adaptations to cope with changes produced both in and outside the countryside and which evolve over time and are characterized by dynamic random or unpredictable new elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]