The biofuel debate is electrifying the UN food price crisis summit in Rome, pitting nations against each other and risking transforming bioenergy - once hailed as the ultimate green fuel - into the villain of the piece, the root cause behind global food price spikes.
Biofuel uses the energy contained in organic matter - crops like sugarcane and corn - to produce ethanol, an alternative to fossil-based fuels like petrol.
But campaigners claim the heavily subsidised biofuel industry is fundamentally immoral, diverting land which should be producing food to fill human stomachs to produce fuel for car engines.
They say the growth of biofuels has had a distorting ripple effect on other food crop markets.
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Secretary General Jacques Diouf agrees.
He says it is incomprehensible that “$11bn-$12bn (£5.6bn-£6.1bn) a year in subsidies and protective tariff policies have the effect of diverting 100 million tonnes of cereals from human consumption, mostly to satisfy a thirst for vehicles”.
It is a viewpoint shared by Oxfam’s Barbara Stocking, who told the BBC News website: “It takes the same amount of grain to fill an SUV with ethanol as it does to feed a person. We don’t want any more subsidies for biofuels. This rush to biofuels is absolutely dreadful.”
Blame game
Yet the exact ranking of responsibility for the food price rises which have caused political unrest in 30 countries and plunged many into hunger is hotly disputed.
No-one denies that biofuels have a role, but the figures on the sector’s inflationary pressure vary wildly from just 3% to 30%.
The US, Brazil and the EU - the main players on the biofuel stage - maintain that soaring energy costs should shoulder a much larger portion of blame.
“Biofuels are not the villain menacing food security in poor countries,” Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told assembled heads of state in Rome.
Brazil’s tropical climate allows the country to efficiently grow sugarcane for ethanol production, which now provides 40% of the country’s transport fuel.
“I am sorry to see that many of those who blame ethanol - including ethanol from sugarcane - for the high price of food are the same ones who for decades have maintained protectionist policies to the detriment of farmers in poor countries and of consumers in the entire world.”
The US, which heavily subsidises corn cultivation for ethanol, insists that biofuels account for “only 2-3% of the food price increases”.
“We recognise that biofuels have an impact, but the real issue is about energy, increased consumption and weather-related issues in grain-producing countries,” US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said.
Source - BBC
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