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Biofuels Are Driving A Global Food Crisis |
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I am of the opinion that a solution to a problem that creates a new problem of greater or similar proportion is, in fact, not a solution.
This most certainly applies to biofuels, one of humans most ill-conceived “solutions” to climate change to date (right up there with nuclear energy, the focus of the Seminal’s special topics issue this month).
Environmentalists have warned for years that pursuing biofuels would spark global food shortages, as farmers around the world face pressure to convert their land from growing food to growing biofuels crops such as soy, corn, and sugarcane. Food shortages, they predicted, would in turn lead to rising food prices, mass hunger and starvation, and violence, on a scale that — when combined with the other negatives of biofuels — would completely negate their viability as a solution to global warming
And in what is easily the worst part of their jobs, environmentalists seem to have hit this one on the head.
Yesterday the World Bank announced that it is launching emergency measures to battle global food shortages, estimating that world food prices have increased by over 80% in the past three years and are putting 100 million people in jeopardy of starvation.
What’s more, in recent weeks high food prices have led to violence in Egypt, the Philippines, Haiti, the Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, and Indonesia, though many are predicting these are just the beginning.
This week, news sources around the world have reported a global food crisis. The top reasons cited for increased food prices are the following (and they are impossible to rank):
- biofuels, competing for arable land
- increased price of energy, important for agricultural inputs and transporting food
- climate change, affecting yields
- economic growth in poor countries, leading to greater demand for food and energy
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see these problems are profoundly interconnected.
Mostly for my own benefit, I’d just like to break this down. Petroleum fuels economic (and thus population) growth, but unfortunately it leads to global warming and decreased petroleum reserves. In an attempt to address both problems without compromising growth, humans start “growing” their fuel. When this seems to work, they decide to grow more fuel, taking over the land where they used to grow their food. But they forgot that (a) growing and transporting fuel still requires using conventional energy sources, and (b) with economic growth comes greater need for both food and energy, and as demand starts to outstrip supply, the prices of both skyrocket. Making matters worse is climate change, one of our initial problems, which has already started depleting crop yields and thus accelerating increases in food prices. Humans are back where they started — facing energy shortages and global warming — only now they are hungry and violent as well.
I’m sure we all get the point. If we should take anything away from this week’s news, it is that biofuels are not a solution to climate change. Not only do they exacerbate it by consuming fossil fuels, encouraging carbon-emitting deforestation, and perpetuating a false sense of economic growth, but they are creating a whole new crisis of global proportions
Good article, I’d like to see more on it. The food industry is one giant mess. They poison us and now they’ve doubled the price to poison us. Ridiculous.
This is a good, well-thought out article. The question that you haven’t addressed is what we can do about the problem of biofuels. I’d love to see a follow-up post.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_11533.cfm
How about we just drive less? It seems like an obvious solution that isn’t getting talked about.
It’s disappointing to see how over 528 pounds of corn %u2013 which is enough to feed one person for a whole year %u2013 is turned into the 26 gallons of ethanol needed to fill the gas tank of a modern SUV (2008 World Development Report). How does the American government plan on sending food aid to those starving nations around the world when they’re over here turning food into fuel?
The ESA (http://www.esa.org/pao/policyStatements/Statements/biofuel.php) is another good resource that talks about the extremely negative effects of the process. One example is that farmers have to use “higher-than-optimal” amounts of nitrogen fertilizer that is the principal contributor to nitrogen pollution of groundwater, surface waters, and coastal zones, and a major source of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide.
@ Jonathan: The answer is simple. Nuclear Power and Electric Cars.