July 4, 2007
Biofuels to send food prices soaring, says OECD
US and Eurpean biofuel related demand of agriculture commodities will push farm products prices up to 50 per cent in the next ten years from their 1997-2007 average, a new UN / OECD study has warned.
The warning, coming after corn, wheat and soyabean prices have risen up to 60 per cent in the last twelve months, reignites the debate on food versus fuel, amid concerns that current first generation biofuel production is not sustainable.
Opec warned recently against biofuels; they may have ulterior motives, but several countries and international groups have expressed their concerns amid higher food prices.
The report, by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, added that long-term prices would be up to 30 per cent higher than previously estimated.
"Growth in the use of agricultural commodities as feedstock to a rapidly increasing biofuel industry is one of the main … reasons for international commodity prices to attain a significantly higher plateau," the report said.
Loek Boonekamp, head of the agriculture division at OECD in Paris, told the Financial Times that "biofuel demand creates a fundamental new demand for agriculture commodities that was non existent only five years ago."
"In a context of generally lower global stocks in recent years, this additional demand is expected to underpin prices," the report said. In the last twelve months, corn had risen by 60 per cent, wheat by 53 per cent and soyabean by 40 per cent.
Burning food biofuels in our cars is genocide. Instead bring in rationing of petrol and diesel.
Posted by: George Malynicz | April 10th, 2008 at 11:04 pm | Report this commentWe should be looking for other ways to make fuel. Taking one or several of staples will cause
Posted by: David Moser | April 12th, 2008 at 1:04 pm | Report this commentfood prices to soar even more, and will lead to global hunger and famine. Couldnt we make it out of sugar, or better yet something that is not food related.
If this continues the whole world will be starving.
Regarding the biofuels debate — it is frightening how far out of touch with reality the debates can become when the technical facts of life are largely unknown to the debaters, and when people don’t want to face up to other problems. For example, did you know that you can get three times as many gallons of car fuel from cellulosic biomass, and use well-established technology, simply by removing the assumption that ethanol (or hydrocarbons) are the only biofuels on the table? Did you know that China (run by engineers) is well along in mass-producing cars which CAN use those alternative cars, and is also planning to mass-market plug-in hybrid cars THIS YEAR? It changes the game. See
Posted by: Paul Werbos | April 26th, 2008 at 2:51 pm | Report this commenthttp://www.setamericafree.org/wordpress/?p=380
for two recent talks given at the hearing room of the Science Committee of the US House of Representatives, giving details. FT reported today that only 10% of recent fuel increases can be blamed on ethanol anyway. Why doesn’t the world face up to the continuing real problems with population growth which account for more than 10% — as well as wage problems connected with globalization, and many other consequences, present and future. Best of luck to us all…