“It is a crime against humanity to convert agricultural productive soil into soil which produces food stuff that will be burned into biofuel,” says Jean Ziegler, the U.N. special rapporteur on the “Right to Food.” “I am gravely concerned that biofuels will bring hunger in their wake,” he told the delegates.
Ziegler said the “sudden, ill-conceived dash to convert food” into fuels “is a recipe for disaster.” In a 23-page report to the session of the U.N. General Assembly, Ziegler calls on the 192 member states to establish a five-year moratorium on all initiatives to develop biofuels through conversion of food.
“This should provide time for an assessment of the potential impact on the right to food, as well as on other social, environmental and human rights, and should ensure that biofuels do not produce hunger,” Ziegler said. At the same time, he argues, member states should ensure that biofuels are produced from non-food plants, agricultural wastes and crop residues, rather than food crops, in order to avert massive rises in the prices of food, water and land.
HUNGER IS GROWING
According to U.N. figures, the number of people suffering from hunger has been rising every year since 1996, and is now 854 million. “Virtually no progress has been made on reducing hunger, despite the commitment made by governments in 1996 at the first World Food Summit, and again at the Millennium Summit in New York in 2000,” says the report. “This is unacceptable. All human beings have the right to live in dignity, free from hunger. The right to adequate food is a human right,” it adds.
The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that 34 countries around the world are facing food crises, the majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa. In the 14 poorest countries, more than 35% of the population goes hungry every day, even during normal times when there is no drought or famine. The problem is worse in countries suffering military conflicts such as Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The close links between hunger and conflict become especially clear when food and famine are used as weapons of war. FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf says that food security is being threatened by several factors, including demands of bioenergy, climate change, low productivity and lack of market access.
THE MENACE OF FOOD RIOTS
As food prices spiral in world markets, he warns, some countries may be forced to impose price controls to avoid political and social unrest. Ahead of the parliamentary elections in December, Russia has introduced price controls on several basic food items, including bread, cheese, milk, eggs and vegetable oil, primarily to prevent political fallout from surging agricultural prices. Diouf is quoted as saying: “If prices continue to rise, I would not be surprised if we began to see food riots” − as in Mexico, Yemen and Burkina Faso.
Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the San Francisco-based Oakland Institute, says the use of harvests to feed cars, not people, inflates demand which spurs price hikes along the production chain and across borders. The 2006 tortilla protests in Mexico showed clearly that price volatility for basic commodities, such as corn, creates high stakes for people that rely on them as staple foods, she notes.
“Those that spend more than half their income on food, which includes a significant proportion of the population in most food insecure regions, will find the amount of food they can buy with their limited income constantly shrinking,” said Mittal.
LESS HUMANITARIAN AID
Not surprisingly then, she pointed out, social movements prefer the word “agrofuels” to “biofuels” to challenge the siphoning off of valuable resources like water and land to feed corporate coffers and “American” lifestyles. However, with billions of dollars of subsidies for biofuel production already in place and probably more promised in the next U.S. Farm Bill, she said, biofuels are likely to remain a significant competitor for agricultural land and productive resources in the United States.
“Since Washington donates the majority of its food aid in kind (direct transfers of food commodities), increased biofuel production on American farmland will invariably affect levels of U.S. food aid contributions,” Mittal added. Already, the amount of corn contributed as food aid has been steadily sinking and as more farmland is devoted to biofuels, U.S. food aid contributions are predicted to drop further, she warned.
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