Biofuels expansion "to raise risk of famine"
Pastor Dale Morgan
Biofuels expansion "to raise risk of famine"
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By Nigel Hunt
CARDIFF (Reuters) - Switching more land from food to biofuel production
raises the risk of future famines, a conference organised by the Soil
Association, the country's leading organic certification body, was told.
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"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 ends on
Saturday.
Melchett said it was estimated in the European Union that 18 percent 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 percent 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 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 U.S.
"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.
U.S. author Richard Heinberg noted that the U.S. 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."