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Fuel, food troubles ahead?
29/01/2007 11:17 - (SA)
Cardiff - Switching more land from
food to biofuel production raises the risk of future famines, a
conference organised by the Soil Association, Britain's leading organic certification body, was told.
"This (an expansion in land used for biofuels) sacrifices
food security for an illusion of energy security," Peter
Melchett, policy director for the association said at its
two-day annual conference which ended on Saturday.
Melchett said it was estimated in the European Union that 18%
of arable land would be needed to produce one to two
percent of the region's transport fuels.
"I am sure we could achieve more much (to improve the
environment) by converting 18% of arable land to organic
farming," Melchett said.
Biofuels can be substituted for fossil fuels and are seen as
a way to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases which are
believed to contribute to global warming.
There has been a rapid expansion in the amount of maize used
to produce biofuel ethanol in the United States while in Europe
the pace of growth in biofuel production is expected to
accelerate over the next few years backed by regulatory and
fiscal measures.
The trend has sparked a fuel versus food debate, heightened
by concern that climate change could reduce the amount of
agricultural land combined with an anticipated substantial rise
in food demand linked partly to population growth.
Famine threat
Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the UK government's Sustainable Development Commission, said a switch towards using more land for energy crops could lead to disaster in a year when there might be a major crop failure in a leading producing country.
"We would be right back into an age of absolutely chronic
and traumatic famine," he told the conference, adding that the move away from food crops would leave "absolutely no reserves in the bank".
Porritt also expressed concern about the farming methods
used to produce biofuels, particularly in the US.
"All of that corn is grown no less intensively, no less
unsustainably for fuel as it would be if it was grown for food," he said.
US author Richard Heinberg noted that the US was
planning to import biofuels as well as produce them.
He noted that tropical regions provided the most favourable
conditions for growing sugar cane and palm oil, the two crops
which can most efficiently be used to produce biofuels.
"Increasingly we are going to see farmers in tropical
regions growing fuel crops rather than food for their own
people," he said.
"Inevitably we are going to see competition between food and
fuel."
- Reuters
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