downtoearth-subscribe

What the biofuel goldrush means for food security

  • 29/04/2007

recently the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, denounced us president George Bush's new-found fondness for biofuels. Food stocks for millions would be threatened, Castro warned.

The octogenarian Communist speaking on ecology doesn't get much press. Castro's fulminations were duly consigned to back pages of newspapers, where they had more to do with speculations about the ailing leader's return to public life. The Cuban leader's criticism of Bush, however, has an import far more significant than paper skirmishes between two old adversaries.

On March 26, the news agency Associated Press (ap) reported that Bush has asked for a commitment from leaders of the us's domestic auto industry to double production of vehicles run on biofuel. This could help motorists shift away from gasoline and reduce the nation's reliance on imported oil.

"That's a major technological breakthrough for the country,' ap reported the us president as saying after meeting honchos of General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler. As oil resources run low, and climate change enters mainstream political discourse