Friday, 18th July 2008
Food or fuel? Are biofuels the answer?
I welcome the recommendations set out in the Gallagher Review, which called for a slower introduction of biofuels due to greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation and the reality of increasing food prices. The Gallagher review was commissioned by the British government and concluded that Britain should not abandon biofuel, but should slow down its production and use. The study advises a more cautious approach until international policies are put in place.
Do we really want to swap energy dependency for food dependency? Millions of hectares of land are being taken out of food production due to the growing demand for biofuels. It is incomprehensible that internationally, subsidies worth US $11-12 billion in 2006 were used to divert 100 million tonnes of cereals from human consumption mostly to satisfy a thirst for fuel for vehicles. Forcing the market to cater for the biofuel industry is affecting the global food crisis. In the last 2 years, biofuel production worldwide has soared.
EU targets require 10% of all fuel sold to be derived from plants within 12 years. 3% of agricultural land in Europe has now been converted from growing food to growing fuel, exacerbating the food shortage crisis. In Indonesia, vast tracts of rain forest are being destroyed to make way for lucrative palm oil crops to supply the West with biofuels. Friends of the Earth report that this trend not only causes large scale environmental damage, but leads to abuse of the rights of local communities and indigenous people. The same situation is occurring in the US, where one third of the total maize harvest last year, supercharged by huge tax subsidies, was turned into bioethanol to fuel cars. This has created a huge demand to fill the gap for feed maize from Brazil and again has lead to the destruction of rainforest and the abuse of indigenous people. It is worth remembering that the amount of maize used to fill the tank of an average-sized US family saloon with bioethanol, would feed a single human being for an entire year.
The current production of biofuels is not sustainable. But the real hope lies not in conventional food crops, but so-called second-generation biofuels, which can be cultivated with little water and few fertilisers on marginal land that will not compete with food crops. Researchers are looking at crops like Jatropha, already undergoing field trials in India, as holding hope for a future free from the stark choice between food and fuel. More research is required into biofuels made from materials that have no impact on the availability and affordability of food crops, such as agricultural and industrial by-products as well as algae and wood. Much hope also rests on cellulosic ethanol, produced from grasses such as switchgrass that can be grown on land deemed unfit for food crops. Biotechnology has a major role to play in providing us with more sustainable biofuels.
We must ensure that EU biofuels policy supports the production of the right biofuels in the right way. Although the best hope lies in second-generation biofuel crops, the production of biofuels from first generation crops can be sustainable in certain circumstances. Current estimates are that there will be a bumper wheat crop in the EU and globally this year. The world wheat harvest in 2008 is predicted to rise from 600 million tonnes to over 650 million tonnes. Britain alone looks set to have a 3 million tonne surplus over what is consumed nationally. This surplus could be exported, or, alternatively given a sufficient level of investment in specialised plant, could be converted to biofuel with the attendant by-product of high protein animal feeds. Maximising the efficiency of land use by producing 2 products for the cost of one with the production of food and fuel together, has to be seen as a sustainable practice, particularly as such by-products are produced in equal quantities to the fuel. So, 3 million tonnes of wheat would provide equal quantities of biofuel and high protein feed, thus reducing the need for costly imports of both. With set-aside land, formerly at 10% of all arable land in the EU about to be abolished entirely, there is clearly enough arable land capacity to accommodate current biofuel targets sustainably.
The spectre of empty supermarket shelves, even in the West, must now be considered a real possibility. We have seen food shortage riots in Africa, consumer protests against rising prices in Europe and significant falls in rice production in Asia. Food security is now top of the political agenda. We should think carefully about this before we destroy further vast swathes of the world's air conditioning system to grow biofuels.
