Biocarburanti: evoluzione della ricerca economico-agraria

The growing global demand for energy needs the Countries to find optimal sources of renewable energy. These include biofuels for transport, whose sustainability has attracted quite a few threads from the beginning. The front of the pessimists became stronger at the outbreak of World Food Crisis 2007/2008, but, as the raw materials we will use for biodiesel and bioethanol production are not well defined yet, we can not forecast the future of these products either. European policy for renewable energy, therefore, applies a precautionary principle and establishes a mandatory sustainability-check of all renewable energy sources, offering new challenges to agricultural economists. A change of course has been marked, we can now outline which roads to take in future research to meet the information requests from various stakeholders involved. This paper takes up the most important aspects related to the production of biofuels for economic research in agriculture. We present a literature review from the most important journal of our scientific sector considering the last decade in order to provide a broad view of the problem and inspiration for the research in the next future.