This article considers the potential for strategic and selective use of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules to regulate, and potentially curb, the expansion of food-based agrofuels. Since 2008, a global agrofuel complex has emerged that is characterized by government-led mandates and investment for food-based agrofuel production and trade. The majority of world agrofuel production utilizes basic foodstuffs–sugar, corn/maize, soy and palm oil–thus generating competition between food/feed and fuel end-uses. This competition is strongly linked to food price volatility, food insecurity and land grabbing on a global-scale. Food-based agrofuel production is projected to increase significantly over the next decade, with international trade of agrofuels growing in tandem due to rising global demand. Despite well-documented social and ecological consequences associated with food-based agrofuels, producing and consuming states demonstrate a lack of political will to curb future agrofuel expansion and, in particular, continue to resist demands by global civil society and other social groups for global agrofuels regulation. In a global political economic context best characterized by a global governance gap for agrofuels, I consider the prospects and challenges of strategic and selective application of WTO rules to regulate food-based agrofuels.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Margulis, M., (2025), "GFT - Regulating food-based agrofuels: The prospects and challenges of international trade rules", HSSCommons: (DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v2i2.82)

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1. biofuel
2. governance
3. WTO

Original publication: Margulis, Matias. "GFT - Regulating food-based agrofuels: The prospects and challenges of international trade rules." Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation, vol. 2, no. 2, 2015, pp. 97-106. DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v2i2.82. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation. Copyright © the author(s). Work published in CFS/RCÉA prior to and including Vol. 8, No. 3 (2021) is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY license. Work published in Vol. 8, No. 4 (2021) and after is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license. For details, see creativecommons.org/licenses/.