ISIS Press Release 08/11/07
UN 'Right to Food' Rapporteur Urges 5 Year Moratorium on
Biofuels
The message of
Biofuels:
Biodevastation, Hunger & False Carbon Credits (SiS 35)[1] getting
through to the top. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Ban on conversion of land to biofuel production
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, has
called for a 5-year moratorium on biofuel production. This recommendation
was contained in his interim report [2] submitted to the UN General
Assembly, which met in October 2007. He stressed that rushing to turn food
crops — maize, wheat, sugar, palm oil — into fuel for cars, without first
examining the impact on global hunger, would be a recipe for disaster. Among
the potential impacts identified are increasing food prices, increasing
competition over land and forests, forced evictions, impacts on employment
and conditions of work, and increasing prices and scarcity of water.
According to Ziegler, a five-year moratorium on biofuel production would
provide time for technologies to be devised and regulatory structures to be
put in place to protect against negative environmental, social and human
rights impacts. It would also allow measures to be put in place to ensure
that biofuel production can have positive impacts and respect the right to
adequate food.
The 232 kg of corn needed to make 50 litres of bioethanol would enable a
child to live for a year, Ziegler pointed out [3]. He said using land for
biofuels would result in “massacres”, predicting a reduction in the amount
of food aid sent to developing countries by richer ones.
Ziegler’s proposal for moratorium aims to ban the conversion of land for the
production of biofuels. He hopes that by the time the moratorium is lifted
science would have made sufficient progress to be able to create “second
generation” biofuels, made from agricultural waste or from non-agricultural
plants such as jatropha, which grows naturally on arid ground.
I have dealt with the limitations of such “second generation” biofuels [4] (Ethanol
from Cellulose Biomass Not Sustainable nor Environmentally Benign,
SiS 30) and the sustainability of jatropha is looking increasingly
uncertain, as far as large plantations are concerned [5] (Jatropha
Biodiesel Fever in India, SiS 36).
Ziegler rightly deplored the fact that sugar cane plantations for biofuels
are spreading at the expense of food-producing land. Ten hectares of land
could produce food to sustain 7 to 10 farmers, he said, whereas the same
area could only produce enough sugarcane for one farmer (see also [6] (Biofuels
Republic Brazil, SiS 33).
Days of cheap food over
The competition for land to grow food has intensified as biotech
companies have jumped onto the biofuels bandwagon [7] (No
to GMOs, No to GM Science, SiS 35).
Just days before Ziegler was due to present his report to the UN General
Assembly, news came of two men killed and five wounded when guards working
for the Swiss biotech company Syngenta clashed with Brazilians invading a GM
seed farm in Parana state. The group Via Campesina had organised the action
in protest at what they called the illegal growing of the seeds. One guard
was killed [8].
“The days of cheap food are over,” said Joachim von Braun, director of the
International Food Policy Research Institute, in an article for the Swiss
Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) [3].
Nearly 900 million people worldwide suffer hunger, 70 per cent of them food
producers, peasants and rural dwellers. Von Braun warns this figure could
reach one billion in a few years, and predicts a 20-40 percent increase in
food prices between now and 2020, leaving the poorest, some living on 50
cents a day “unable to foot the bill.”
References
- Ho MW. Biofuels: biodevasttion, hunger & false carbon credits.
Science in Society 33,
36-39, 2007.
- Ziegler J. Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the
right to food. Office of the Unied Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights.
http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/annual.htm
- “UN rapporteur calls for biofuel moratorium”, 11 October 2007,
Swissinfo SRI, via TWN News, 25 October 2007.
- Ho MW. Ethanol from cellulose biomass not sustainable nor
environmentally benign.
Science in Society 30,
32-35, 2006.
- Ho MW. Jatropha biodiesel fever in India. Science in Society 36 (in
press).
- Ho MW. Biofuels republic Brazil.
Science in Society 33,
40-41, 2007.
- Ho MW. No to GMOs, no to GM science.
Science in Society 35,
26-29, 2007
- “Two killed at protest against GM seed farm”, John Vidal, The
Guardian,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2197018,00.html
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