According to a report issued by aid agency Oxfam today, biofuels are to blame for a 30 per cent increase in global food prices. In the search for alternative fuel sources, Oxfam says biofuels have also pushed 30 million people into poverty globally.
Digital Journal -- As the world looks for a viable alternative to oil, Oxfam has issued a report saying biofuels are certainly not a solution to fighting climate change or the global food crisis.
“Policies promoting biofuels are actually helping to accelerate climate change and deepen poverty and hunger,” said report author Rob Bailey, Oxfam’s biofuels policy advisor, in a news release. “Thanks to generous subsidies and tax breaks, the fuel value for a crop now exceeds its food value. It is no surprise that, despite bumper crops, grain reserves are at an all-time low.”
Developing countries are seeing their biofuel use climb dramatically as governments and private firms look to cut back their dependence on oil and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. However, in the search for an alternative, critics like Oxfam say commodity prices are climbing as a result and the world now faces grain shortages.
Robert Fox, executive director of Oxfam Canada, says people should reject government biofuel initiatives. “The law [in Canada] would in effect tax poor consumers through higher food prices by subsidizing the conversion of the corn crop into ethanol."
Fox says people living in poverty will be hit hardest because their food bills represent a greater proportion of their total income. “And due to the globalized food system, our policies contribute to rising food prices in poor countries around the world," said Fox.
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Oxfam says wealthy countries spent a whopping $15 billion in 2007 by supporting biofuel initiatives through targets, subsidies, tax breaks and tariffs. In Canada alone, Oxfam says taxpayers will be paying $1 billion every year in biofuel subsidies by 2010.
Recent studies show
ethanol may actually harm the environment more than help it, as it emits more greenhouse gases than gas over its entire cycle, including both production and consumption.
“Even if the entire world’s supply of grains and sugars were converted into ethanol tomorrow – in the process leaving us little to eat – we would only be able to replace 40 per cent of our gasoline and diesel consumption,” Bailey said.
“More than half of Canada’s corn crop would have to be turned into fuel to meet the five per cent target proposed in the legislation before the Senate,” Fox said. “Burning food in our cars while people go hungry is madness.”
The 58-page report can be
found in PDF format here.
Biofuels Increase Food Prices 30 Per Cent, 30 Million People Face Poverty Worldwide
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