While it seemed like a good idea to use agrofuels in the beginning- it has now become a menace to the quality of life for people globally and without reducing greenhouse gas emissions says the author.
In the beginning it seemed like a good idea to power our cars using plant based "biofuels", like switching from a diet of greasy hamburgers to pure sweet green tea. Most environmentalists agreed, and governments around the globe adopted policies mandating biofuels use and supporting the burgeoning new industry with subsidies. Multinational agribusiness giants, Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Bunge, Monsanto....all rolled up their sleeves and prepared the coffers for major cash influx. So did the biotechnology industries, anticipating new opportunities to market genetically engineered crops for fuel, even where their food crops remained unpopular. Auto manufacturers breathed a sigh of relief: with an alternative fuel available, people would not bother to drive less. Big Oil with an eye on the future, ramped up investment and a major green-wash campaign.
A few lonesome voices suggested that there could be negative consequences. Lester Brown, from Earth Policy Institute, for example, predicted that "the stage is now set for direct competition for grain between the 800 million people who own automobiles and the world's 2 billion poorest people". Others pointed out that agriculture itself is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and hence not to be relied upon as a solution to climate change. NGOs from Latin America, Africa, the EU and the U.S. called for moratoria on incentives and targets mandating biofuel use.
Now we are faced with the predicted mess. The push for agrofuels has forced people off their land, often violently, created new incentives for deforestation, sucked aquifers dry, and increased use of fertilizers and agrochemicals. To top it off, a study published recently in Science showed that because of impacts on land use, agrofuels result in far more, rather than less, greenhouse gas emissions. As if that were not enough, food prices have skyrocketed. The price of wheat has risen 130% in the past year, and staples overall have gone up 80% in the past two years. Some of that has happened in leaps and bounds: rice rose 31% over the course of just a week or so in late March.
Apparently the food price problem has multiple causes. High oil prices have made everything from fertilizer to tractors to trucking more expensive. Increased demand for meat, which takes a lot of grain to produce, is another contributing factor. The faltering economy has driven investors to speculate in commodities, which destabilizes markets. Global grain reserves are depleted and severe weather conditions have reduced grain production in some places.
Meanwhile, grain is being diverted into fuel production. Estimates are that in 2008 a full one-third to one-half of the U.S. corn harvest: about 140 million tons of corn was turned into ethanol (offsetting a mere 6% of U.S. transport fuel). This diversion has global ramifications: for example, as American farmers have switched from soy to ethanol corn, South American farmers are making up the shortfall, converting grazing lands into soy and driving cattle farmers into the forest frontiers.
The answer, many claim, is new technologies (dubbed "second generation" biofuels). These will supposedly avert competition for food by using cellulose derived from non food plants grown on ''marginal" land. On the horizon loom biofuel-friendly Genetically Engineered trees. Wood is considered a promising alternative, but if biofuels are manufactured from wood, demand for wood products, already unsustainable, will skyrocket. The worlds forests cannot feed biofuelrefineries as well as supply increasing demand for heat and electricity generation, pulp, paper and wood products while also contending with climate change. Deforestation has already proceeded to the point where forests are faltering in their capacity to provide essential climate regulating functions:
The answer lies elsewhere: in the short term, it is not enough to apologize while millions are starving to death. We must pony up the $U.S. 500-700 which the World Food Program says is needed to immediately temper the food crisis. Then it is imperative that we seek out and destroy the common root of the food crisis, the climate crisis and the energy crisis: A corporate oligarchy which has used its' international financial mechanisms to facilitate the flow of resources from the global south into consumer markets of the north at any expense whatsoever, including the future of life on earth.
Agrofuels are the "poster child" of this system: ADM and Cargill, basking in the light of new and expanding markets for agrofuels, jumped 42% and 86% respectively over the past quarter alone, while an additional 12 million people were added to the tally of the chronically malnourished. Such blatant transgressions are fueling discontent: the grassroots is hungry and is uniting in its’ uncompromising demand: agriculture, energy supplies and the stewardship of life must be put back into the hands of people who need more than ever to be able to weather the crises and live on their own terms.
The international United Nations bodies mandated with developing policies to avert climate crisis (the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change), protect biodiversity (the Convention on Biological Diversity) and oversee agriculture and food systems (Food and Agriculture Organization) have degraded into little more than market halls, as they have openly embrace market 'solutions" in spite of the inherent conflicts of interest. Just as an example, Ahmed Djouglaf refers to nature as the "greatest corporation", and a side event at the CBD meeting here in Bonn is entitled "Mainstreaming Biodiversity Into Commodity Supply Chains." Behind a veil of inaccessibility, a small and select club of corporate servants are discussing the commodification, not the protection, of life. Outside of the veil, increasing numbers of hungry angry and disillusioned people are taking matters into their own hands.
Dr. Rachel Smolker is the lead researcher and campaigner for Global Justice Ecology Project and Global Forest Coalition.
She also is the lead author of "The real cost of agrofuels: Impacts on food, forests, people and the climate" that can be downloaded here
