PRESS STATEMENT OF CONG. ROILO GOLEZ
BIOFUELS PROGRAM MUST BE SUSPENDED, USE FUNDS FOR FOOD INSTEAD OF FUEL

I reiterate my call that the Government should suspend the multibillion dollar biofuels program of the country and redirect the huge financial and land resources from biofuels to food production.

At best, the biofuels program can provide only around 5% of the country’s transport fuel needs in the coming five years, but in exchange, the biofuels program has wrought havoc to the food production sector, contributing to the emerging global disaster of food scarcity and high food prices.

The people can survive without the 5-10% contribution to energy security that the biofuels program can potentially provide, but the people cannot survive the dislocation of the food sector that is now fast unravelling.

There is also the very serious global ethical issue that some sectors pushing for biofuels are doing so because they are going to benefit pecuniarily from the increased demand for biofuels crops like sugar and corn. This must be reviewed and clarified by the government before any further resources are committed to the biofuels sector.

The Department of Agriculture, which oversees food security, must lead the way in the need to suspend the biofuels program.

Here are the handwritings on the wall that the Government must heed before it is too late:

World cooling on biofuel solution
(AFP)
5 April 2008

JAKARTA- Once a golden promise in the fight against climate change, biofuels are fast losing their lustre as high demand for essential crops drives land clearing and pushes up the price of food.

Biofuels made from food crops such as corn, sugar, soybeans and oil palm burn cleaner than fossil fuels, but experts say high demand is sending ripples through the world economy, and could be doing the environment more harm than good.

Germany drops plan for auto biofuel

BERLIN (AFP) — Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Friday that Germany would scrap plans to develop auto biofuels because they were not appropriate for millions of vehicles.

"We will not do it," Gabriel told the television channel ARD.

Food Prices To Rise For Years, Biofuels Firms Say
David Brough, PlanetArk 4 Apr 08;

LONDON - Staple food prices will rise for some years, but should eventually fall to historical averages as harvests increase, biofuel company executives said on Thursday.

Soaring demand for better quality food from rapidly industrialising emerging markets such as China , supply shortages, increased demand for biofuels, and a surging appetite for food commodities by investment funds, have combined to push prices of basic foods higher and higher in recent months

World Food Price Crisis - Genocidal UK , EU , US Biofuel Perversion Threatens Billions
April 2, 2008

By Dr Gideon Polya

The world is facing a global food crisis, or more specifically a biofuel-fuelled world food price crisis that is threatening the very lives of billions of people according to the Chief Scientific Adviser of the British Government and fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), Professor John Beddington FRS

Biofuels boom hurting Asia’s poorest people
By AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

GENEVA – Biofuels are not only hurting poor consumers in Asia by driving up crop prices, they are also failing to help the region’s farmers who have not been able to adapt their production to cash in on the boom, a United Nations report said on Thursday.

"So far, poor rural farmers have not seen the benefits of biofuel production. They lack the wherewithal to extend their land and adapt to new crops. And the impetus for large-scale farming can push the poor off their land, excluding them from biofuels," it said.
"Small poor farmers in particular, have been left behind," UN Conference on Trade and Development economist Cape Kasahara told reporters in Geneva .
The rise of biofuels has come under fire, with Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Wednesday criticising countries like the United States for diverting farm products to produce biofuels, saying this had led to soaring global food prices.

Time to kill crop-derived biofuels

Written by Tom Bowman
Saturday, 29 March 2008
Yet another prominent scientist has joined the chorus against crop-derived biofuels, as Lewis Page reports.
Dr Richard Pike, chief of the Royal Society of Chemistry, has said that biofuels are a "dead end" and "extremely inefficient", and that the government was wrong to impose a requirement for 5 per cent biofuel content in motor fuel by 2010.
Dr Pike points out that "the 80 tonnes of kerosene used for a one-way commercial flight to New York is equivalent to the annual biofuel yield from an area of approximately 30 football pitches." At this rate it would take the whole of Britain 's farmland just to run Heathrow.

It really is time to stop this nonsense. To produce these crops people are farming intensively, using more fertilizers and pesticides. In poorer countries people are cutting down virgin rainforest to plant biofuel crops. Poor people are finding corn and wheat priced out of their market, and the tanks of 4x4s are taking the food from the plates of poor families.

Caution urged in biofuel use
Reuters | Thursday, 27 March 2008

The world must take care when developing biofuels to avoid perverse environmental effects and higher food prices, Nobel Peace Prize winner and climate change scientist Rajendra Pachauri said.
Speaking at the European Parliament, he questioned whether the United States ' policy of converting corn (maize) into ethanol for use as a transport fuel would reduce the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Controversy has grown over using food crops to make biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels. Some environmentalists and politicians say it has raised food prices, distorted government budgets and led to deforestation in southeast Asia and Brazil .

Global Food Crisis
Editorial

By Gideon Polya
US Biofuel & CO2 threaten billions

The United States (US) is currently using about 9% of its wheat, 25% of its corn and about 15% of its grain in general to produce biofuel. The United Kingdom (UK) has committed to large increases in the use of biofuels over coming decades, has recently announced subsidies for biofuel and supports the European Commission (EU) target requiring 10 per cent of petrol station fuel to be plant-derived biofuel within 12 years. However the huge and intrinsically genocidal US diversion of 15% of its grain crop to biofuel production has had a huge impact already on soaring global food prices – the world is already facing a global food crisis with alarm being expressed by UN, FAO and other scientific experts.

Thus the UK Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor John Beddington CMG, FRS (Professor of Applied Population Biology at Imperial College, London.) has described the devastating potential of food shortages as an "elephant in the room" problem commensurate with that from climate change and warns that biofuel diversion (e.g. for canola oil- or palm oil-derived biodiesel and grain- or sugar-derived ethanol) is threatening world food production and the lives of “billions” (see: here): "It's very hard to imagine how we can see the world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous demand for food. The supply of food really isn't keeping up."

UN biofuel warning, call for return to traditional farming
Date: Sun 13 April 2008
Category: Biofuels

Despite being highly productive, modern agricultural practices have exhausted land and water resources, squelched diversity and left poor people vulnerable to high food prices, according to a United Nations scientific report.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) says that the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report is the result of three years of cooperation between nearly 400 scientists, the governments of developed and developing countries, and representatives of civil society and the private sector.

The report recommends that agricultural science place greater emphasis on safeguarding natural resources and on ‘agro-ecological’ practices, including the use of natural fertilizers, traditional seeds and intensified natural practices, and reducing the distance between production and the consumer.

The report states, “Business as usual is no longer an option” as global grain stores are today at their lowest level on record and prices of staple foods such as rice, maize and wheat are expected to continue to rise because of increased use of crops such as maize and soybeans for biofuels.

The need for action is urgent, the report says, because many poor people are now reliant on the global food market, where soybean and wheat prices have increased by 87% and 130% in the last year.

The report comes at the time when food riots are becoming a regular global events, and the organisations such as the World Bank, The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Food Programme have issued warnings about rising food costs as crops are diverted to biofuel production.


IMF chief warns of war over food
High prices may lead to trade imbalances

Philippine Daily Inquirer, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse
First Posted 01:01:00 04/14/2008
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WASHINGTON—The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that if food prices remain high, there will be war and other dire consequences for people in many developing countries.

Thirty-seven countries currently face food crises, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

On Saturday, Germany ’s development minister, who attended the World Bank’s Sunday meeting, called for greater regulation of the global biofuels market to prevent its expansion driving up food prices.

“It is unacceptable for the export of agrofuels to pose a threat to the supply situation of the very people already living in poverty,” Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said in a statement.

The development group Oxfam, a frequent IMF critic, said rich countries were largely responsible for the food crisis because they had been cutting aid to developing countries and encouraging biofuel production, which, the IMF said, was responsible for almost half the increase in the demand for food crops.