Biofuels to blame for food crisis, says Oxfam
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25/06/2008
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Asian Age (New Delhi)
New Delhi June 25: The Indian government's view that biofuels are responsible for current food crisis, stands vindicated by one more international report. A briefing paper by Oxfam released on Wednesday has blamed biofuels for contributing to the present food crisis. In its report named "Another Inconvenient Truth: How Biofuel Policies are Deepening Poverty and accelerating Climate Change", Oxfam warned that biofuels are not a solution to either the climate change crisis or the oil crisis. The cost of using biofules to improve fuel security are prohibitively high, the report pointed out. The biofuels, in fact, are contributing to a third crisis: the current food scarcity and rising its prices according to the report. The report said that biofuel policies are responsible for dragging 30 million people into poverty. "Biofuel mandates and support measures in rich countries are driving up food prices as they divert more and more food crops and agricultural land into fuel production," the Oxfam report said. The report focused on how huge and mind-boggling is the energy consumption by rich countries. "(Energy) Consumption of oil-rich countries is so huge that for biofules to be a significant alternative, it requires massive amounts of agricultural production." If the entire corn harvest of the US was diverted to ethanol, it would only be able to replace about one gallon in every six sold in the US." The Oxfam report echoed the facts presented in the Food and Agricultural Organisation's food outlook report, wherein it is said, "The emerging biofuels market is a new and significant source of international demand for some agricultural commodities like sugarcane, maize, cassava, oilseeds and palm oil. The increase in demand for these commodities has been one of the leading factors behind the increase in their prices in the world market which, in turn, has led to higher food prices."