From a Paper Published by the National Institute of Health: Food vs. Fuel: Diversion of Crops Could Cause More Hunger David J. Tenenbaum [This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.] Eager to promote nonpetroleum energy sources to reduce dependence on oil imports and slow global warming due to fossil fuel emissions, the United States, Brazil, and the European Union are promoting biofuels made from food crops. Ethanol production (mainly in the United States and Brazil) tripled from 4.9 billion gallons to almost 15.9 billion gallons between 2001 and 2007, according to C. Ford Runge, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Minnesota. During that same period, biodiesel production (mainly for sale in the European Union) rose almost 10-fold, to about 2.4 billion gallons, although further expansion is now uncertain. Biofuel production has been prodded by government initiatives such as subsidies and tax incentives. But action is not necessarily the same thing as progress, say some experts. “We are witnessing the beginning of one of the great tragedies of history,” says Lester Brown, an analyst of global resources who founded the Worldwatch Institute and now heads the Earth Policy Institute. “The United States, in a misguided effort to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into fuel for cars, is generating global food insecurity on a scale never seen before.” The head of Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage company, agrees. As reported 23 March 2008 by Agence France-Presse, chairman and chief executive Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said, “If as predicted we look to use biofuels to satisfy twenty percent of the growing demand for oil products, there will be nothing left to eat. To grant enormous subsidies for biofuel production is morally unacceptable and irresponsible.” Even as growing quantities of corn and other grains are being diverted for use as biofuel feedstocks, newly affluent people—mainly in Asia—are eating more meat and dairy, which puts a further demand on animal feed supplies. There are many signs of concern. On 14 April 2008, the online African Energy News Review news service noted that food riots had killed five people in Haiti, adding, “The diversion of food crops to biofuel production was a significant factor contributing to global food prices rocketing by 83% in the last year, and causing violent conflicts in Haiti and other parts of the world.” In December 2007, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) calculated that world food prices rose 40% in 12 months prior, and the price hikes affected all major biofuel feedstocks, including sugarcane, corn, rapeseed oil, palm oil, and soybeans. On 17 December 2007, the International Herald Tribune quoted FAO head Jacques Diouf warning of “a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food,” particularly in the developing world. In the summary proceedings of the First FAO Technical Consultation Bioenergy and Food Security, held 16–18 April 2007 in Rome, authors from a group of UN agencies cautioned that “possible income gains to producers due to higher commodity prices may be offset by negative welfare effects on consumers, as their economic access to food is compromised.” (“Welfare” here refers to standard of living, not government payments.) “I think it is hardly in dispute anymore that the push by the U.S. and E.U. governments for a strong contribution and a mandated amount of biofuels to their energy mix has contributed to some of the food crisis problems we see today,” says Liane Schalatek, associate director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation North America, a German-based nonprofit. Indeed, policy makers have suddenly begun to reconsider the biofuel mandate in light of the global food crisis. A Confluence of Factors To be fair, no one is blaming the rapid price increases solely on biofuels—hunger and malnutrition were widespread before the biofuels boom began. According to the UN World Food Programme, 854 million people were undernourished in 2001–2003, and about 10 million people die of hunger and hunger-related diseases in an average year. However, demand for biofuel feedstocks is overwhelming a food supply system that was already overextended by surging demand. Moreover, the demand for biofuel affects even nonfeedstock crops, such as rice and wheat, as farmers plant feedstocks instead of food. The price of rice hit a record 3 April 2008, according to Forbes Market Watch, which added that “the World Bank estimated that 33 countries faced ‘social unrest’ because of soaring food and energy prices.” As food becomes scarce, Brown says, major exporters, including Vietnam, Russia, Argentina, and Kazakhstan, have imposed limits on exports. On 19 January 2008, The New York Times reported, “Egypt has banned rice exports to keep food at home, and China has put price controls on cooking oil, grain, meat, milk, and eggs.” The article added, “Just in the last week, protests have erupted in Pakistan over wheat shortages, and in Indonesia over soybean shortages . . . [and] food riots have erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.” High prices are also pinching food aid. According to Rising Food Prices Intensify Food Insecurity in Developing Countries, a February 2008 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service, the global food aid budget would need to rise about 35% over the next decade in order to maintain the 2006 level of 8 million tons of food aid. Meanwhile, biofuel production is booming around the world. Brazil, the United States, and Europe account for the lion’s share of today’s biofuel production and consumption. However, developers are beginning to take advantage of the many crops grown elsewhere that can be converted into fuel. In Malaysia and Indonesia, where vast palm oil plantations are being established in cleared rainforests, biodiesel refineries have created a palm oil shortage. The 19 January 2008 New York Times reported that the price of palm oil for cooking has risen by 70%, and street vendors in Malaysia are having difficulty finding cooking oil. China has an active biofuels program. According to the Spanish-based nonprofit GRAIN, China has begun importing the root vegetable cassava as a feedstock from Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Nigeria. Ironically—given that these imports will place upward pressure on the price of this dietary staple in the source countries—the GRAIN website noted that China said its motive was to “relieve tensions with food supplies.” In Tanzania, GRAIN reports in the November 2007 white paper “An African Call for a Moratorium on Agrofuel Developments,” thousands of rice and maize farmers are being evicted from their lands in order for large companies to plant sugarcane and jatropha trees (whose seeds are a feedstock). Read More: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2430252/
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 21:37:18 +0000
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