Are Agrofuels the Cause of High Food Prices?
The world is undergoing an acute food crisis with soaring prices for basic food. Prices of rice and wheat were about double their levels a year earlier, and corn prices were over a third higher. The crisis in food prices is the result of a combination of factors, among which the reduction of supplies due to farmers’ switch from growing crops for food to crops for agrofuels. Rich countries have promoted the production of agrofuels despite strong arguments warning about the ecological and social disaster they would imply on the world’s food security and on local peoples’ livelihoods and environments. Agrofuels will indirectly destroy forests and lead to more costly food by increasing land pressures upon natural forests and agricultural crop lands
Tags: agrofuels, corn, environment, high food prices, rice, wheat
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:03 pm
The President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio da Silva, seems to think that biofuels is not an attributing factor to world hunger caused by the rise in food prices. The president adamantly thinks that biofuels aren’t the villain that threatens food security and that Western subsidies are actually to blame. He said at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s meeting in Brasilia that food is expensive because the world wasn’t prepared to see millions of Chinese, Indians, Africans, Brazilians and Latin Americans eat. To counter critics that claim biofuel production is a crime against humanity, the President responded that the real crime against humanity would be to just cast aside biofuels and push countries struggling with food and energy shortages towards dependency and insecurity.