Concern over the growing food crisis is intensifying, and fingers are starting to point in the general direction of biofuels when looking for a culprit. Critics insist that using food for fuel instead of to curb worldwide hunger will have lasting negative effects on society, and sadly, the nations in the most need of help will bare the brunt of the damage. Brazil, one nation that has come under heavy fire for their biofuel production, insists biofuels are not to blame for the problem.
With its prodigious farm exports and its major industry making ethanol from sugarcane, Brazil is seeking to show that in the food versus biofuel debate at least in its case the two can co-exist. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has challenged critics who claim biofuel production is contributing to high food prices and demand, arguing the problem lies instead in poor agricultural and distribution models. – AFPThe United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, a summit with delegates from 181 countries, met in Rome to discuss the issue. The debate over whether to increase or decrease biofuel production is deeply rooted in the strategy to combat the global food crisis. Most of the attendees agree that the two are linked, but how strong that link actually is remains in question.
Biofuels are often viewed as a viable way to combat global warming and decrease dependency on oil, but environmental activists and international groups are hesitant to buy into the hype surrounding current biofuel options. The systematic clearing of forests for biofuel farmland – a frequent and troubling trend – appears to be accelerating the rate of global warming when biofuels should be deterring it. And then the human issue comes into play.
An estimated 1 percent of the world's arable land is used for biofuels, a figure that will rise to between 2.5 and 3.8 percent by 2030, depending on policy incentives, according to International Energy Agency figures. Some peasant farmers could benefit from the boom if they have access to land to grow the increasingly profitable cash crops, but other are likely to be driven off land required for large-scale plantations, the report said.
"Specific social groups such as pastoralists, shifting cultivators and women are especially liable to suffer exclusion from land caused by rising land values, while people who are already landless are likely to see the barriers to land access increase further," it said. – Reuters
Both the United States and European Union have been sponsoring biofuel production heavily in recent years and the results have been mixed. Regardless, it appears biofuels will be a permanent fixture in the economy, and figuring out how to make them more of a help than a hindrance has taken center stage at the Rome summit. Because of varying trends in food commodity prices and spending – developing countries spend a greater portion of their incomes on food than wealthy nations – it is hard to lock down a solution.
The proportion of total funds that households use to pay for food varies hugely, from more than 60 percent in Bangladesh, to 27 percent in China and just 10 percent in the United States or Germany, the report said. It also highlighted the impact of financial investors in the commodities futures markets, saying this added upwards pressure on prices in the short term but that the jury was still out as to the long-term impact, beyond generating greater volatility. – ReutersAs the summit came to a close, leaders pledged to ease trading barriers between nations while increasing agricultural production, but major biofuel producers like the U.S. and Brazil challenged the majority of participants about which crops are preferable and how largely biofuels contribute to rising food prices. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer remained steadfast that America was "firmly committed to the sustainable production and use of biofuels, both domestically and globally."
The challenge is finding a way to incorporate biofuels into the global economy without driving up food prices and advancing deforestation. The summit has called for “in-depth studies” to determine which crops will create the most eco-friendly biofuels, but we are left wondering if the U.N. managed to successfully address the food crisis and the causes of rising prices in a real and actionable way.
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