Expert: biofuels will help fight hunger

It has become a bit of a nuisance to read commonplaces about biofuels, such as the idea that they push up food prices or that they are not energy efficient. A more in-depth look at these important issues reveals a far more complex reality. But despite scientists' efforts to bring more nuance into the debate, some myths persist.

One of those is the food versus fuel debate. Biofuels may temporarily increase food prices but this doesn't imply people will starve. On the contrary, higher agricultural prices reduce poverty, boost incomes and thus strengthen the food security of the vast majority of the world's poor, who live in rural areas. Moreover, the question is not whether biofuels make food more expensive, the real thing to ask is: what would happen if we were only to rely on ever more costly oil? The answer is very straightforward: everything would become more expensive, not only food. For the poorest countries the effects are more poverty, hunger and underdevelopment, while the rest of the world may suffer the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change. Biofuels help counter both these dark prospects. Recently, African scientists even went so far as to conclude that biofuels may be key to achieving the UN's ambitious 'Millennium Development Goals' (previous post).

Antonio José Ferreira Simões, director of the Department of Energy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brazil - a country with vast experience on the social and economic effects of green fuels - writes an interesting essay in the International Herald Tribune, in which he explains why he thinks biofuels will help fight hunger. In an argumentation that resembles our own, Simões takes a broad perspective on the matter:

The first decades of the 20th Century heralded the automobile era. At the time, it was said that it would not be safe to trade the reliability of a horse for the uncertainty of an automobile. After all, the horse was always available and ran on alfalfa, clearly an abundant raw material. It was then too risky to trust gasoline, some argued, since it could become scarce in a few years.

Today, as we are again facing the challenges of changing our energy matrix, it is important to clearly establish what is reality and what is myth regarding biofuels.

The reality is that if we maintain the current rate of oil consumption without major reductions in carbon emissions, we will surely be heading in the direction of unprecedented climate change and natural disasters. It is also a fact that if oil demand continues to increase, prices will skyrocket, terribly affecting poor countries. The International Energy Agency itself admits that increasing demand and irregular supply will impose additional pressure on prices, which in turn will also be affected by higher extraction costs of new reserves (deep waters, heavy and extra-heavy oil). Additionally, the increase in oil prices will have serious consequences on the price of food products. More expensive fertilizers will become less accessible to farmers in poor countries. Sharp increases in transportation costs will reduce the access to food for millions. Therefore, higher oil prices will surely mean less food consumption.

One of the most common myths is that biofuels will necessarily compete with food production. Nowadays, the largest food producers are the developed countries that strongly subsidize their agriculture. In developing countries, with few exceptions, large scale food production does not occur: They simply cannot compete with rich countries' agricultural subsidies. It is more cost-effective to import products offered as food aid from developed countries, or sold at subsidized prices, than to produce locally.

Production of biofuels in developing countries would change this picture. Large extensions of unutilized arable land in the Southern Hemisphere would be employed for highly profitable biofuel-oriented crops, restructuring the agricultural sector. Millions of jobs would be generated, thus increasing income, exports and food purchasing power of the poorest. Furthermore, production of biofuels in the South would help avoid redirecting the use of food-producing land in the North for this purpose:
energy :: sustainability :: ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: food security :: energy security :: poverty alleviation :: developing world :: Africa ::

In Brazil, biofuels production has grown alongside with increasing food crops. It is lack of income that fuels hunger, not the use of biofuels. Experience has proven that biofuels production generates income, increasing food consumption. The Brazilian ethanol industry generates one million direct jobs and up to six million indirect jobs. Biodiesel benefits 224 thousand low-income families.

Another myth is that the production of biofuels threatens the Amazon rain forest. It should be noted that between 2004 and 2006, a period of strong growth in the Brazilian biofuels production, the Amazon rain forest deforestation rate was reduced by 52 percent. Also, large sugar cane plantations are located at least 1,000 kilometers away from the Amazon region, where it is not possible to efficiently grow sugar cane, due to the high humidity, which prevents saccharose from forming.

Biofuels also could contribute to reduce carbon emissions through the use of degraded lands. In the case of Brazil, we use less than 10 percent of all arable land for sugar cane cultivation. There are, however, 150 million hectares of degraded pasture land that the Brazilian Government is working to recover. This land will receive a vegetal cover from sugar cane, thus contributing to reduce carbon emissions.

In order to ensure that the development of biofuels production takes place while contributing to the improvement of social and environmental conditions, as announced by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil will organize a national technical, social and environmental certification system. This will allow us to constantly verify the sustainability of our production.

Nowadays, world energy resources are concentrated in 20 countries. Biofuels will allow a true democratization of the international market, as over 100 countries will be producing energy for the world. There is no doubt about the fact that this is a great change, maybe as revolutionary as the one that began in the early 20th Century. After all, the transition from animal traction to petroleum was antipodal to environmental sustainability. Today, we can correct this and, at the same time, contribute to the generation of employment and wealth in the countries of the South - much to the benefit of the global community.

Picture: castor oil farmer in Brazil's arid Nordeste region, where the new biodiesel program currently benefits 60,000 poor rural families. The energy agriculture program boosts both the income and food security of the households. Courtesy: German Agency for Technical Cooperation.

References:
International Herald Tribune: Biofuels will help fight hunger - August 6, 2007.