NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences 77 (2016) 9–17

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NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences

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Measuring the importance of the bioeconomy in Germany: Concept

and illustration
Josef Efken a,∗ , Walter Dirksmeyer b , Peter Kreins c , Marius Knecht d
a
Thünen Institute of Market Analysis, Bundesallee 50, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany
b
Thünen Institute of Farm Economics, Bundesallee 50, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany
c
Thünen Institute of Rural Studies, Bundesallee 50, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany
d
Institute for Agricultural Policy and Market Research, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Senckenbergstraße 3, 35390 Giessen, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper aims at measuring the importance of the bioeconomy within the economy as a whole in
Received 5 June 2015 Germany. It is based upon the definition of the bioeconomy by the German Bioeconomy Council accord-
Received in revised form 10 March 2016 ing to which the bioeconomy “encompasses all those sectors and their related services which produce,
Accepted 16 March 2016
process or use biological resources in whatever form.” Various official statistics were exploited for the
Available online 5 May 2016
determination of the different industries and their share of the bioeconomy. Our analysis covers the devel-
opments from 2002 to 2010. The indicators used were employment and gross value added. Altogether,
Keywords:
about five million employees, representing 10% of all employees and 140 billion Euros, representing 6%
Bioeconomy
National account of gross national product have been identified as the share of bioeconomy in Germany in 2010. This
Biological resources indicates a strong increase compared to the year 2002. Challenges that still need to be overcome are that
Biomass neither the available data nor the economic activities themselves can be unambiguously assigned to the
Bioenergy bioeconomy or the non-bioeconomy.
Material use © 2016 Royal Netherlands Society for Agricultural Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights
reserved.

1. Introduction conomy within the economy as a whole turns out to be a complex

Today, biological resources play an indispensable role in meet-
ing the global challenges of a rapidly growing world population,
the depletion of fossil resources and environmental protection and
climate change [1–3]. In this light, it is not surprising that biolog-
ical resources have become more and more part of many sectors
of the economy. The sum of all of these ramifications forms the
so-called bioeconomy, defined as “all industrial and economic sec-
tors and their associated services which produce process or in any
way use biological resources (plants, animals, micro-organisms).
These sectors include: agriculture and forestry, the food indus-
try, fisheries, aquaculture, parts of the chemical, pharmaceutical,
cosmetic, paper and textile industries, as well as the energy indus-
try.” (Bioökonomierat,1 p. 7, [4]). Given the broad scope of this
definition, a quantitative assessment of the importance of the bioe-
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: josef.efken@thuenen.de (J. Efken),
walter.dirksmeyer@thuenen.de (W. Dirksmeyer), peter.kreins@thuenen.de
(P. Kreins), marius.knecht@t-online.de (M. Knecht).
1
The German Bioökonomierat is a scientific advisory board of the German Gov-
ernment which is focused on questions in the field of the bioeconomy.
task. While the first stage of the bioeconomic value chain which
consists of the production of biomass in agriculture, forestry, aqua-
culture etc. [5] is rather easily surveyed, the ‘bioeconomic share’
of downstream stages like the food, wood but also the chemical or
pharmaceutical industries is not readily available.
Several studies exist which analyze the importance of the bioe-
conomy within the economy as a whole. Already in the early 90s
Peerlings [6] generated an applied general equilibrium model for
Dutch agribusiness policy analysis, with a consideration of agricul-
ture and processing industries and their interdependencies with
the whole economy. Nowicki et al. (p. 41) [7] estimate that the
“level of the production of materials that are entirely or partially
bio-based has a market of around 450 billion Euros in the EU-
25 manufacturing sector”. The German Bioökonomierat (p. 16) [5]
describes in its report on bioeconomy innovation that in 2005 the
share of those sectors of the economy “which either produced or
processed biomass, or in which biotechnological processes were
used” amounts to 4.9% of gross value added for the EU-25. Further-
more, 6.3% of the working population in the EU-25 was employed
by these sectors. For Germany, the corresponding numbers amount
to 3.9% of gross value added and 5.2% of the working population
[5]. The report emphasizes in this context that the production of

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.njas.2016.03.008
1573-5214/© 2016 Royal Netherlands Society for Agricultural Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
10 J. Efken et al. / NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences 77 (2016) 9–17
food and feed strongly dominates the share of the bioeconomic
gross value added in the EU-25 as well as in Germany [5]. Finally,
Hensche et al. [8] explicitly evaluate the importance of the agribusi-
ness including agriculture in the German economy. The authors
show that this “cluster” accounts for approximately 12% of the labor
force and 6.6% of gross value added in 2008 (Hensche et al. [8],
p. 167). Following the cluster concept [9] the whole value chain
has to be considered while analyzing the economic relevance of
an economic cluster such as agriculture, horticulture or the bioe-
conomy. Hence the cluster concept extends the definition of the
Bioökonomierat [4] by including all upstream industries such as the
agro-chemical industry, the packaging industry or the agricultural
mechanical engineering industry. The cluster concept was applied
while quantifying the economic relevance of the agricultural [8]
and horticultural [10] sectors in Germany, respectively. In a sim-
ilar way Rönnlund et al. (pp. 13) [11], calculated the share of the
bioeconomy in terms of turnover and employment across the five
Scandinavian countries. Differences between these countries are
apparent. In sum, in terms of turnover, around 10% of the economy
is related to bioeconomy in the Scandinavian countries.
The presented numbers suggest that, on the one hand, results
depend heavily on which, and to what extent, sectors of the econ-
omy are included into the analysis. In other words, results depend
on the definition of the term bioeconomy and how this is trans-
ferred in specific calculation rules. On the other hand, it becomes
clear that such calculations demand high data requirements.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the data
sources and the measurement concept used in order to reveal the
importance of the bioeconomy within the German economy as a
whole. Section 3 illustrates, on the basis of selected sectors, how the
concept is applied. In Section 4 results are presented and evaluated.
Section 5 provides a discussion of the merits and limitations of the
underlying approach and concludes the paper.
2. Measurement concept and data
In order to identify the economic relevance of an industry or a
cluster, different indicators can be used. In this analysis the gross
value added at factor cost and the number of employees are chosen.
The gross value added identifies the economic value of combining
the different production factors within an industry. Furthermore,
it allows the additive linking of individual industry results. Thus,
it is the mostly used indicator for the quantification of economic
activity and potential. The second indicator, employment, depicts
a fundamental sociopolitical dimension and is highly important for
each economy.
While analyzing the economic relevance of the bioeconomy, the
question arises what kind of economic activities have to be taken
into account as parts of the bioeconomy. The suitability of different
approaches for defining the system boundaries while quantifying
the bioeconomy shows that the definition of the system bound-
aries has a strong normative element. Their definition influences
the results of such an analysis tremendously. In this paper, we
apply the definition of the German Bioökonomierat (p. 10) [5]
since this definition is the result of an intense scientific excursus
with a strong influence on the German Government. According to
the Bioökonomierat the bioeconomy is defined as “all economic
activities, including services, which produce, process, work on or
utilize by any means biological resources”. Hence, this definition
focuses on the production and utilization of biological resources
and goes far beyond the consideration of only the primary sec-
tors as all downstream industries that use biological resources are
accounted for. In contrast, most of the upstream industries will not
be considered as a part of the bioeconomy because industries like
the agro-chemical and machinery industry do not use biological
resources in their production processes. Hence, the definition we
apply is narrower than the one of the cluster concept following
Rehfeld [9].
The usage of biological resources builds the heart of the defi-
nition of bioeconomy. Thus, calculation should be input oriented:
The share of biological resources of an industry that goes into the
production process is the relevant figure to determine the bioe-
conomic proportion of that industry. Furthermore, we assume for
reasons of simplicity linearity between share of inputs and share of
value added as well as share of employment.
Another argument which led us to our approach described
above was the objective to ensure appropriate acceptance by deci-
sion makers within the political system. Our experience shows
that transparency and easy comprehensibility are fruitful prereq-
uisites. Furthermore decision makers and politicians desire the
opportunity to actualize results and to compare results with other
countries. All these aspects are equally important in science, but
they also have consequences for the approach. Data should not
be specific and unique in time and space which often is the case
when data is based on questionnaires. Thus, official data with a
reliable, standardized and repeatable data collection system and,
in the best case, internationally harmonized data bases should be
the first choice for the measurement of the bioeconomy.
To quantify the primary sector (agriculture, horticulture,
forestry and fisheries) data from the European System of National
and Regional Accounts were used. The European System of National
and Regional Accounts is an internationally compatible EU account-
ing framework for a systematic and detailed description of an
economy. The harmonized and reliable statistics permit compar-
isons between EU-member countries [12]. The primary sector has
been considered to belong completely to the bioeconomy. The rea-
son is that its main characteristic is the production of biological
resources thus, producing the bioeconomic inputs for downstream
industries [13]. Moreover, there are serious difficulties to value
and also separate non biobased and biobased activities in primary
production (e.g. tourism). Hence, calculation of the primary sector
builds an exception from the rule to count activities depending on
their use of biological resources as inputs.
Pertaining to the other industries, the European System of
Accounts [14,15] was chosen as a basis to define and quantify the
bioeconomy. The European System of National Accounts was devel-
oped in the light of the needs of the European Union in view of
the United Nations System of National Accounts (SNA), with the
main objective to provide a systematic, comparable and quantita-
tive assessment of the various economic activities within a country.
To structure and systematize the results of the national
accounts, numerous classifications are used which are harmonized
internationally, for example, the classifications of the economic
sectors according to NACE (Nomenclature statistique des activités
économiques dans la Communauté européenne) [16]. The alloca-
tion of the economic units to the particular categories takes place
according to the gross value added at basic prices. It is the basis
for establishing statistics about production value, the production
factors of the production process (labor, maintenance resource and
materials, energy etc.), capital accumulation and financial trans-
fers of these units. The official statistical classification of economic
activities in Germany [17] is based on NACE, Revision 1.1 [18].
In particular, we use the turnover tax statistics, various cost
structure statistics and the survey about material and goods statis-
tic. Turnover tax statistics come from the tax offices [19]. The
statistics cover almost all private companies because they are
considered if their turnover reaches at least 17,500 D per year.
Especially in industries with a high share of small enterprises, like
all kinds of handicraft businesses, these statistics give additional
information about ‘real world’ numbers of enterprises as well as
turnover.
 J. Efken et al. / NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences 77 (2016) 9–17
The cost structure statistics from the German Federal Statisti-
cal Office deal with the main parameters of company accounting
like turnover, employment, net and gross value added, etc. Cost
structure statistics are available mostly on a yearly basis from
manufacturing, wholesale, retail, different services industries and
further special industries [20–28]. Companies with 20 or more
employees are taken into account. As a consequence, in some indus-
tries a significant number of companies are not considered. Data
collection is done by stratified random sampling based on the sta-
tistical business register of the German Federal Statistical Office
which serves as the population. Results are extrapolated to the
whole industry.
On the basis of the survey about Material and Goods received
(MGr) by companies [28], the German Federal Statistical Office col-
lects data every four years. These are the sole official statistics about
the input-structure (value and percentage-share) of the different
industries. The input-structure is based on the classification of MGr
in the industry that contains 584 categories of goods.
3. Application of the concept
As mentioned before, the primary sector, i.e. agriculture, horti-
culture, forestry and fishery, is entirely taken into account. Due to
the fact that bioenergy is a relatively new area of economic activity
there is no well-established foundation in official statistics. Thus,
we had to take a special approach: The quantification of the share of
bioenergy in the bioeconomy is based on publications of the Federal
Ministry of Economics and Technology [29]. The monetary weight
of power generation from biological resources was calculated on
the basis of two different prices. The quantity of electricity, which
has no eligibility for remuneration under the Renewable Energy
Sources Act [30], was valued at market price, while the quantity
of electricity that has eligibility for remuneration, was valued with
the state guaranteed price. The monetary weight for the heat gen-
erated from biomass is also rated with the market price. Thus, an
overall production value for the energy from biomass of almost 16
billion euros was calculated for the year 2010. The cost of producing
energy from biological resources unfortunately could not be taken
from the statistics. Here, it was assumed that the value added is
40% of the production value, comparable with the electricity sector.
With a value added of around EUR 6.3 billion in 2010, the bioenergy
sector makes up approximately 5% of the total gross value added.
All other industries of the downstream manufacturing sector
have been checked with the MGr-statistics as to whether they use
biological resources as inputs. If so, the share of these inputs has
been used to calculate gross value added and employment related
to bioeconomy (see Table 1, examples A, B, C).
Where data from cost structure statistics is missing, we use
turnover tax statistics to identify the turnover of the relevant indus-
try. In a second step we use input-output accounts to determine the
gross value added coefficient of the industry in order to calculate
gross value added of the industry (see Table 1, example F).
For the three important industries: grocery retail, drugstores
and homeworker markets we use estimates from different market
research companies to get an idea about the share of turnover of
these industries related to biological resources [31–38] (see Table 1,
example D).
In the similarly important case of restaurants we do not find reli-
able information about the share of turnover related to biological
resources. Thus, this industry is considered entirely (see Table 1,
example E).
These examples illustrate that there is a trade-off between the
rather good data base in primary production and manufactur-
ing and the calculations in the trade and services sectors which
are based more on estimates. Furthermore, there is a discussion
11
whether the retail and restaurant and catering industry should be
incorporated into the bioeconomy [6]. The reason is their apparent
loose connection to biological resource production and treatment.
On the other hand, all these industries only exist due to the fact that
they process (picking and packing, preparing, offering) biological
resources. It is a service that is directly connected with biological
resources and thus, is covered by the definition. Accordingly, these
activities are included in bioeconomy. The discussion shows that
not only definition matters but also a common understanding is
necessary why industries are connected or not with the bioecon-
omy in order to get comparable results.
4. Results
The calculations lead to some general statements: (i) the use of
biological resources plays an important role within the economy,
(ii) “food and wood” are the dominant product groups of biolog-
ical resources usage, (iii) new value chains which use biological
resources in new ways are not yet well-established and do not
tie up significant labor and value added yet and (iv) in a modern
industrialized economy like Germany primary production within
the bioeconomy ties up low shares of labor and gross value added.
Counting all activities from primary production via manufactur-
ing to trade and services and consumption, the bioeconomy stood
for around 10% of the entire workforce of the German economy and
6% of gross value added in 2010 (see Fig. 1).
Between the years 2002 and 2010, employment in the bioecon-
omy grew by 30% while employment in the total economy grew
by 4%. Gross value added of the bioeconomy rose by 22% between
the years 2002 and 2010 while gross value added of the total econ-
omy increased by 16%. Thus, the development of the bioeconomy
has been somewhat more dynamic in this period. In particular,
wholesale and retail industries within the bioeconomy as well as
restaurants, canteens and caterer industries increased in impor-
tance in this period. With regard to labor and gross value added,
the industries mentioned increased above-average in the bioecon-
omy and compared to primary production and manufacturing in
particular. The same is true if the bioeconomy is compared with the
whole German economy. Part-time work increased within the ser-
vices sector [39]. That may to some extent explain the pronounced
increase of employment in the bioeconomy because these indus-
tries cover nearly 2/3 of employment therein (see Fig. 4). Another
point that may explain to some extent the above average increase
of the bioeconomy compared to the whole economy is the highly
supported bioenergy industry. With a value added of around 6,3
billion Euro in 2010, the bioenergy sector makes up approximately
5% of the total gross value added of the bioeconomy. In 2002 it has
resulted in 1,6 billion Euro or 1% of the bioeconomy.
In addition, there is also an effect due to changes in statistics
that is responsible for these different developments. In this analy-
sis official statistics were used in order to prevent changes in the
data base and to ensure comparability across years. However, even
the use of official data cannot protect against breaks in data series.
In Fig. 2, both the trade and service sector depict a surprisingly
heavy increase from 2006 to 2010 while the manufacturing sec-
tor shrank a bit. The reason for this is that results for 2010 are
based on the NACE Rev. 2 [16] from 2008, whereas the other two
years are related to NACE Rev. 1.1 from 2003 [18]. Comparing NACE
from 2003 and 2008, shows shifts from the manufacturing sector
to the trade and service sectors. For example, the industry “retail;
mainly food” (industry-code 2003 = 52.11 and 2008 = 47.11) grew
from 2006 to 2010 by 30%. This increase is obviously based on the
new classification of companies, but unfortunately detailed infor-
mation on these changes could not be obtained. In sum, differences
12 J. Efken et al. / NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences 77 (2016) 9–17

Table 1
Examples of the calculation of the importance of the bioeconomy. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this table legend, the reader is referred to the web version
of this article.)

Source: own calculations based on Refs. [17,19–28].

Fig. 1. Ratio of gross value added (left) and employment (right) of the bioeconomy to the total economy in Germany. Source: own calculations based on REfs. [16–28].
 J. Efken et al. / NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences 77 (2016) 9–17
Fig. 2. Development of gross value added within the different industries of the bioe-
conomy in Germany.
Agr: agriculture, For: forestry. Fish: fisheries.
Source: own calculations based on Refs. [16–28].
Fig. 3. Development of gross value added of the bioeconomy in Germany if whole-
sale, retail and gastronomy industries are excluded.
Source: own calculations based on Refs. [16–28].
between 2006 and 2010 in the different sectors are caused to some
degree by changes in the statistical classification.
Fig. 3 displays results if the industries retail/wholesale and
restaurants/canteens etc. are excluded from the bioeconomy. In
this case, there is almost a stagnation in the importance of the
bioeconomy except for bioenergy and services associated with bio-
logical resources. These results may be more robust and adequate
for international comparisons because neither specific respectively
individual calculations are necessary nor debatable industries like
retail are considered.
The Bioeconomy can be classified in different ways. Fig. 4 shows
the results if the bioeconomy is differentiated according to the eco-
nomic levels (1) primary production, (2) manufacturing, (3) trade
and services in the year 2010. As might be expected, primary pro-
duction on the farm, in the forest or on the fishing boat does not play
a dominant role in the bioeconomy, although creation of biological
resources is of course an essential activity in the bioeconomy. Man-
ufacturing of biological resources, whether in food-, wood-, paper
or in other industries like the pharmaceutical industries ties up 32%
of the value-added and 19% of the labor in the bioeconomy in 2010.
13
Table 2
Production, imports, and exports of fruits and vegetables in Germany in 2008.
Value of Production Million Euro Share %
Production in Germany 2686 18.9
Imports 11,560 81.1
German Market 14,246 100.0
Exports 2680 18,8
Source: own calculations based on Ref. [42].
Wholesale and retail, in particular food retailing, each account for
34%, of the value-added and labor of the bioeconomy. Restaurants
and canteens build the main industries of the service industries in
the bioeconomy. The service sector accounts for 28% of labor and
17% of gross value added.
In conclusion, the bioeconomy can be split into two parts: (1)
“production and processing of biological resources” which holds
50% of value added and 40% of employment and (2) “trade and ser-
vices related to biological resources” which captures the other half
of value added and 60% of employment in Germany in the year
2010.
Another way to disentangle the bioeconomy is to show the input
structure in the manufacturing sector. Fig. 5 shows that forestry and
agriculture are of equal importance for the manufacturing indus-
try. With regard to forestry this might be somewhat surprising. The
reason for this is the important role of forestry for the paper indus-
try. Inputs from agricultural activities are dominated by classical
food ingredients.
Fig. 6 shows where and to what extent industries of the man-
ufacturing sector achieve value added with biological resources
used as inputs and the corresponding employment. First, results
underpin the statement that biological resources are used and
treated mainly in typical and traditional value chains. While
agricultural products are used mainly in the food industry, the
wood-based industry (construction, furniture, paper/cardboard)
relies on forestry products to a large degree. In addition, combining
information from Figs. 5 and 6, it becomes clear that other indus-
tries of the manufacturing sector make considerable use of inputs
from these “traditional” products like paper, cardboard or wood
packaging. This might be an indication that new value chains which
use biological resources in new ways are not yet well-established
or do not tie up yet significant labor and value added.
As the bioeconomy in this paper is defined including all down-
stream industries, also trade, processing and services related to
imported biological resources is accounted for in this analysis.
Hence, the question arises to what degree the bioeconomy in
Germany can be attributed to German primary production. The
effect of the consideration of foreign trade as a part of the bioe-
conomy will be analyzed for the example of the German fruit and
vegetable industry. This industry is characterized by a compara-
tively low degree of self-sufficiency. In terms of quantity it varies
between 33% and 38% for vegetables [40] and 10% and 13% for
fruits [41] in the years 2003/04 and 2008/09 respectively. Hence,
large amounts of fruits and vegetables are imported to Germany
annually. Table 2 reveals that in 2008 the share of fruits and veg-
etables produced in Germany amounts to 18.9% of the total fruit
and vegetable market in Germany, i. e. including imports and
before exports. As a consequence, in Germany, the trade of and
the processing of fruits and vegetables depend on foreign primary
production to a high degree.
The German fruit and vegetable cluster contributes a gross value
added of 11.9 billion Euros to the bioeconomy in Germany. The
returns add up to 57.9 billion Euros while a total number of 439,658
persons are employed in the whole cluster (see Table 3).
As the share of produce from Germany of the whole fruit and
vegetable cluster is limited to 18.9%, the indicator values for the
 14
Table 3
Shares of fruits and vegetables from selected downstream industries for the whole produce available in the German market and related to production in Germany.

WZ 2008 Name of Economic Sector Share of Production from Germany Persons Employed Returns Gross Value Added Production Value
% Number Million Euro Million Euro Million Euro

J. Efken et al. / NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences 77 (2016) 9–17

Agriculture 915.200a 38.676 16.975 50.049
Fruit & vegetables Production in German Agriculture 100 61.379b 2.686c 1.423d 2.686e
10 Manufacture of food products 569.309 141.396 25.097 141.788
Fruits and vegetables in division 10 22.890 7.926 1.162 7.930
thereof related to production in Germany 18.9 4.315 1.494 219 1.495
11 Manufacture of beverages 64.085 19.833 6.182 19.895
Fruits and vegetables in division 11 3.315 945 252 947
thereof related to production in Germany 18.9 625 178 48 179
46 Wholesale trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles 1.391.960 891.551 103.700 177.068
Fruits and vegetables in division 46 34.168 21.301 2.534 4.250
thereof related to production in Germany 18.9 6.442 4.016 478 801
47 Retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles 2.878.893 420.167 80.540 146.782
Fruits and vegetables in division 47 108.060 17.168 2.495 5.013
thereof related to production in Germany 18.9 20.372 3.237 470 945
55 + 56 Accommodation and food service activities 1.369.036 51.282 24.680 50.548
Fruits and vegetables in divisions 55 + 56 209.846 7.861b 3.783 7.748
thereof related to production in Germany 18.9 39.562 1.482 713 1.461
Fruits and vegetables in Germany 439.658 57.887 11.649 28.574
thereof related to production in Germany 132.695 13.093 3.351 7.566
Share of production in Germany (%) 30.2 22.6 28.5 26.5

Own calculations based own different statistics [16–28,42,43].

a
Year 2007.
b
Based on Ref. [43].
c
Based on Ref. [42].
d
Calculated by applying the value added coefficient of ZBG [43].
e
It is assumed that the returns equal the production value.
 J. Efken et al. / NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences 77 (2016) 9–17 15

Fig. 4. Gross value added and employment within the different industries of the bioeconomy in Germany; 2010. Source: own calculations based on Refs. [16–28].

Fig. 5. Importance of the different biological resources used as inputs in the manufacturing sector in Germany; 2010.
Source: own calculations based on Refs. [16–28].

whole cluster cannot be completely attributed to German produc-

tion of fruits and vegetables. On the contrary, in order to determine
the share from downstream industries which can be assigned to
fruit and vegetable production in Germany, assuming linearity, the
indicator values of the different downstream sectors of the fruit and
vegetable cluster need to be reduced by 81.1%. For this reason the
gross value added attributable to German fruit and vegetable pro-
duction reaches a level of 3.4 billion Euros (28.5% of the whole fruit
and vegetable cluster), whereas the returns amount to 13.1 billion
Euros (22.6%). The numbers of employees which can be assigned
to German production sum up to 132,695 persons (30.2%) (see
Table 3).
The results from analyzing foreign trade in the fruit and
vegetable sector show that the system boundaries need to be con- Fig. 6. Composition of the bioeconomy in the manufacturing sector in Germany;
sidered when using the figures from analyses as presented here 2010.
in discussions. This is especially important in the political debate Source: own calculations based on Refs. [16–28].
when the usage of figures may be more influenced by the objective
of supporting own interests than of discussing facts. The results of studies like the one presented are decisively influ-
enced by the definition of the bioeconomy, selection criteria and
5. Discussion setting of system boundaries. To some extent it is the question
between the cluster-approach versus a biological resources ori-
The results of the analysis show that following the approach ented approach. However, if the objective is to completely cover the
proposed in this paper it is possible to reveal the importance of the bioeconomy the approach for the analysis becomes very complex.
bioeconomy in a country. Using data from official statistics enables For example, the use of specific statistics in the manufacturing sec-
us to show size, structure and national (German) specificities as tor allows a quite detailed calculation of the bioeconomy whereas
well as priorities of the bioeconomy. However, there is a time lag in trade and service industries data gaps remain. These gaps neces-
until new industries and developments will be integrated in official sitate particular, in this case German-specific, ways to identify the
statistics which causes data gaps. It should be noted that modern share of the bioeconomy in several industries of the services sector.
innovative biotechnological processes cannot be identified on this In the analysis presented, with only a few exceptions, official
aggregated data level. statistics establish the basis of the calculations. For the primary as
16 J. Efken et al. / NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences 77 (2016) 9–17
well as the manufacturing sector except bioenergy, international
comparisons of the relevance of the bioeconomy as well as updates
of the analysis are possible, because at EU-level harmonized statis-
tics including harmonized collection and aggregation procedures
exist.
Data gaps in the services sector as well as the discussion whether
retail and/or restaurant industries should be considered [6] still
show the limits of the approach. Maybe, only parts of the bioe-
conomy are suitable for international comparisons. But again,
important are clear commonly agreed calculation rules that allow
international comparisons of the importance of the bioeconomy
based on the whole or even a part of the economy.
Due to the globalization of the economy as the example of
the German fruit and vegetable industry shows, the importance
of industries cannot completely be attributed to domestic produc-
tion. However, in lobby-driven political discussions this is often
done. Thus, in order to get a realistic estimate about the position
of domestic production of biological resources the consideration
of international trade and in particular of imports of biological
resources as inputs for downstream industries is very important
but difficult to identify and to count. Further work is needed.
The results show that a revolution in production and use of
biological resources cannot be identified as food and wood still
dominate activities in the bioeconomy. This is not surprising as
these activities have a millennia-long tradition and are essential for
humankind. Biological resources as feedstock in new industrial pro-
duction processes are, with the exception of the politically heavily
supported bioenergy sector, of minor significance.
The outcome presented here draws another picture of the char-
acteristics of an economy. Thus, the results indicate the importance,
composition and limitations of the bioeconomy for private or polit-
ical decision makers. However, our calculations might build a
starting point for further analyses and for following economic and
political activities. The next step of the analysis has to be the inte-
gration of other countries and concurrently the development of a
harmonized approach for collecting data and counting the contri-
bution of the bioeconomy across countries.
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