While the media has been focusing on looming potential global
crises — a peak in oil production, shortages of potable water, threat of
escalating war(s), and myriad effects of global warming — a more urgent
problem has been simmering: a global food shortage.
The problems are all interrelated. Higher oil prices add to food
distribution costs, for example. Climate change has already contributed to
crop declines. Behind it all is the growing global population, which puts
more demands on the planet for all these resources. One odd pressure,
according to the Herald Tribune article: More grain is being diverted “to
feed cattle as the population of upwardly mobile meat-eaters grows.”
Biofuels threaten 'billions of lives'
Lewis Smith and Francis Elliott | March 08, 2008
THE rush towards biofuels is threatening world
food production and the lives of billions of people, the British
Government's Chief Scientific Adviser warned yesterday.
British ministers have committed to large increases in the use of
biofuels over coming decades.
But John Beddington described the potential effects of food shortages as
the "elephant in the room" and a problem to rival climate change.
"It's very hard to imagine how we can see the world growing enough
crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous
demand for food," he told a sustainability conference in London.
"The supply of food really isn't keeping up."
His concerns were echoed yesterday by UN World Food Program director
Josette Sheeran who told the European parliament: "The shift to biofuels
production has diverted lands out of the food chain.
Updated Sat. Feb. 9 2008 9:04 AM ET
Philip Stavrou, CTV.ca News
Converting land for biofuel crops results in major carbon
emissions and actually worsens the problem of global warming instead of
mitigating it, says a new study.
The study by Nature Conservancy, an organization working to
protect ecologically important lands and waters, will be published in Science
magazine later this month.
"Our study found that any
biofuel that causes clearing of natural ecosystems will increase global
warming," Joe Fargione, a scientist for The Nature Conservancy, told
CTV.ca.
Biofuels
Worse Than Fossil Fuels, Studies Find
Stephen Leahy
BROOKLIN, Canada, Feb 8 (IPS) - Biofuels are making climate change worse, not better, according
to two new studies which found that total greenhouse gas emissions from
biofuels are far higher than those from burning gasoline because biofuel
production is pushing up food prices and resulting in deforestation and loss
of grasslands.
"Emissions from ethanol are 93 percent higher than gasoline,"
said David Tilman, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota and co-author
of one of the papers published Thursday in the journal Science.
"The bottom line is that using good farmland for biofuels
increases greenhouse emissions," he said.
Corn-based ethanol was supposed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases
(GHGs) by 10 to 20 percent compared to burning gasoline. But previous studies
did not account for the real-world fact that when agricultural land is used
for fuel there is less land to grow food in a hungry world. That drives up
food prices and leads to conversion of forests and native grasslands to grow
food.
Converting forests and grasslands is a big climate no-no.
Tuesday, 29 April 2008, 10:15 am
Press Release: United Nations
Biofuel production is 'criminal path' leading to
global food crisis - UN expert
28 April 2008 - The United
States and the European Union have taken a "criminal path" by contributing
to an explosive rise in global food prices through using food crops to
produce biofuels, according to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the
right to food.
Speaking at a press conference today in
Geneva, Jean Ziegler said that fuel policies pursued by the US and the EU
were one of the main causes of the current worldwide food crisis. Mr. Ziegler
said that last year the US used a third of its corn crop to create biofuels,
while the European Union is planning to have 10 per cent of its petrol
supplied by biofuels. The Special Rapporteur has called for a five-year
moratorium on the production of biofuels.
Activists to lobby against bill that boost biofuel
Sat. Apr. 19 2008 2:14 PM ET
TORONTO -- Biofuels derived from crops
such as corn and canola might have the support of Canadian governments but
activists say a growing reliance on the technology represents a real threat
to the environment and the global agriculture sector - a warning they plan to
take across the county.
While the cross-Canada information tour
is aimed at the "dangers" of biofuels, the Canadian Biotechnology
Action Network (CBAN) fears its message comes too late to influence proposed
federal legislation to increase reliance on the alternative energy.
The bill - an amendment to the
Environmental Protection Act - would require gasoline, diesel and heating oil
to contain minimum amounts of biofuel, a renewable energy source derived from
plants and often referred to as agrifuels.
While a five per cent ethanol
requirement in gasoline, for example, is already mandated in some provinces
it's been criticized of late given the rising cost of food - a worldwide
phenomenon critics say is driven in part by the growing demand for biofuels.
"This is a critical time
when it comes to both how we deal with energy policy and how we deal with
food policy," said Devlin Kuyek, a researcher with Montreal-based NGO Grain.
"Rushing into this biofuels craze is, I think, very premature."
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071009/alberta_oil_071009?s_name=&no_ads
Ethanol Demand Threatens Food Prices
Technology Review - Published by MIT
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Rising corn prices are already affecting everything from
the cost of tortillas in Mexico City to the cost of producing eggs in the
United States.
By Brittany Sauser
The recent rise in corn prices--almost 70
percent in the past six months--caused by the increased demand for ethanol
biofuel has come much sooner than many agriculture economists had expected.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, this year the
country is going to use 18 to 20 percent of its total corn crop for the
production of ethanol, and by next year that will jump to 25 percent. And
that increase, says Marshall Martin, an agriculture economist at Purdue
University, "is the main driver behind the price increase for
corn."
The jump in corn prices is already affecting
the cost of food.
The rising food costs fueled by ethanol demand are also affecting U.S.
consumers. "All things that use corn are going to have higher prices and
higher cost, to some extent, that will be passed on to consumers," says
Wally Tyner, professor of agriculture economics at Purdue University. The
impact of this is being felt first in animal feed, particularly poultry and
pork. Poultry feed is about two-thirds corn; as a result, the cost to produce
poultry--both meat and eggs--has already risen about 15 percent due to corn
prices, says Tyner. Also expect corn syrup--used in soft drinks--to get more
expensive, he says.
The situation will only get worse, says David Pimentel, a
professor in the department of entomology at Cornell University. "We have over
a hundred different ethanol plants under construction now, so the situation
is going to get desperate," he says. Adding to the worries about
corn-related food prices is President Bush's ambitious goal, announced in his
last State of the Union address, that the United States will produce 35
billion gallons of ethanol by 2017.
Still, some suggest that the overheated ethanol market could soon cool
down. "Politicians will see that, first of all,
it is not helping our oil independence," says Pimentel. "It is increasing the price of food for people in the U.S.,
it is costing an enormous sum of money for everyone, and it is contributing
to environmental problems. But I can imagine it is going to take another year
or more before politicians realize they have a major disaster on their
hands."
Biofuels backlash in US as food costs hit home
http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Biofuels_backlash_in_US_as_food_costs_hit_home_999.html
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) May 9, 2008
A biofuels backlash has erupted in major ethanol producer the United
States, as lawmakers and experts debate the merits of converting food to fuel
to support America's age-old love affair with the automobile.
With gasoline at record prices at US pumps, and soaring corn, rice and
wheat costs sparking a global food crisis this year with deadly riots in
several nations, some have questioned the wisdom of President George W.
Bush's call for higher US biofuel mandates that divert US crops, like corn,
to fuel production.
"Why are we putting food in our gas tanks
instead of our stomachs?" Richard Reinwald, owner of Reinwald's Bakery in
Huntington, New York, asked members of Congress at a hearing last week on
skyrocketing food costs.
Rapeseed biofuel ‘produces more greenhouse gas than oil or
petrol’
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