Will biofuel policies lead to more hungry people?
When corn fields like this go to ethanol, the poor suffer higher food prices. (Credit: Great Valley Center Image Bank. Some rights reserved.)
Joachim von Braun: We currently take quite a bit of food out of the food system and put it over into the energy system where it ends up in our cars.
That’s Joachim von Braun, Director-General of the International Food Policy Research Institute, which tries to provide sustainable solutions based on science for ending global hunger. Von Braun served on a panel on food and fuel at the 2008 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.
Von Braun said that – in the developing world – the emerging link between the world’s food and fuel economies means higher food prices – and more hunger for the poor – while creating some opportunities for some farmers.
Joachim von Braun: Let’s not forget most of the energy consumption in the world is by rich people. Whereas food is really, absolutely critical for the poorer 2 billion people.
Von Braun’s computer models show that for every 1 percent increase in the price of food, the poor spend three-fourths of a percent less on food. And he said that biofuels – now made mostly from corn, sugar, and oilseeds – are driving food prices up.
Joachim von Braun: The current biofuel policy is a mess, in North America and the U.S. and in Europe. It undermines the food situation of the poor in the world. Whereas it is good that we have entered this sector of biofuels with the current technology, it’s not fair and it’s not productive. So scale up science and go slow on the expansion of this technology is my take-home message.
Von Braun added that he’s optimistic about the potential for new biofuel technologies and materials. They could boost the economies of developing countries, where much of the biomass will be grown.
Joachim von Braun: Once we have good technology, over the next ten years or so, I expect we will have a vibrant biofuels/ biomass sector, and that will be good for them. I find it important that these new ideas are also accessible to developing countries where the problems of both energy scarcity and food scarcity are most severe.
Von Braun based his remarks in part on a new report from the International Food Policy Research Institute, which was released December 3, 2007 at the annual general meeting of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The report – “The World Food Situation: New Driving Forces and Required Actions” – suggested that income growth, climate change, high energy prices, globalization, and urbanization are all converging to transform food production, markets, and consumption.
In a January article in Science Daily, von Braun was quoted as saying, “Food prices have been steadily decreasing since the Green Revolution, but the days of falling food prices may be over.
“Surging demand for feed, food, and fuel have recently led to drastic price increases, which are not likely to fall in the foreseeable future, due to low stocks and slow-growing supplies of agricultural outputs. Climate change will also have a negative impact on food production, compounding the challenge of meeting global food demand, and potentially exacerbating hunger and malnutrition among the world’s poorest people,” he said.
Here’s a related article from the New York Times:
A Global Need for Grain That Farms Can’t Fill
Food and Fuel Not Fuel vs Food
Last year, the starch was removed from 1 out of 5 bushels of corn to make ethanol. This corn would have been fed directly to livestock, mostly cattle. And since cattle do not digest the starch, it would have gone to waste anyway. The other half of that bushel produced high protein distillers grains livestock feed, and corn oil extracted to make food or biodiesel. Distillers grains, a major byproduct of ethanol production, is enhanced animal feed used to produce food.
There is a surplus of corn. Farmers would like to export more, but exports of corn are flat. The same amount was shipped in 2006 and 2007. However, exports of high protein distillers grains doubled during the same time period. Increasingly, distillers grains are being imported by foreign countries to fatten animals, as consumption of meat and dairy products in China and other foreign countries is on the rise. Does that sound like biofuels is causing starvation? Far from it.
Biofuels are not all about food vs fuel. ICRASAT, a research group of agricultural scientists in India have developed a variety of Sweet Super Sorghum that produces a phenomenal 44 tons per acre per year from 2-3 cuttings. The juice is squeezed to make ethanol; the tops produce grain for human consumption; the leaves are used for animal feed; and the stalks produce fiber and burn pellets. In Vicksburg Arizona is a 2,700 acre dairy farm integrated with a state of the art dual fuel biorefinery, operated by XL Renewables. Corn is fractionated into 3 components. The starch is converted to ethanol. The oil is extracted from the corn germ and made into biodiesel. And the high protein distillers grains byproduct is fed to onsite dairy cows to produce milk. The CO2 is collected and sold for industrial use. Self-powered from adjacent dairy cow manure producing methane, this is a 10 to 1 efficiency plant, totally disconnected from the grid.
Biofuel critics make the mistake of lumping together all biofuels, which includes corn ethanol, sorghum ethanol, biodiesel, biogas methane, biocrude oil, cellulose ethanol, biobutanol, synthetic biofuels, and more. Lumping biofuels together and smearing them is ignorant and unscientific. Each type of biofuel has a very different set of parameters. Furthermore, the biofuels industry is evolving and diligently reinventing itself for greater efficiency and diversity.
The above article is full of false assumptions, omissions and inaccurate information, from people who claim to be authorities but lack even basic knowledge of biofuels. Take biogas which forms methane for example. That’s a biofuel made out of manure, agricultural waste, municipal solid waste, and sewage. Algae, from which ethanol and biodiesel is made, is now being grown on the residual methane gas digester effluent waste. Farm manure that is left to rot or run off releases methane gas into the atmosphere, which is 22 times more potent than CO2 as a green house gas. Manure, a detrimental waste product that costs money to dispose of, is now being converted into methane, a value added biofuel. Ethanol critics are ignoring the fact that biorefineries are now beginning to mitigate this problem.
If people are starving, its because they live in countries with corrupt governments that are confiscating most of the food aide before it gets to the people. Hunger is also caused by global organizations who have groomed poverty stricken countries to become dependant on outside sources of food, instead of helping them grow their own. If you are concerned about people starving, then you and your friends should skip a few meals now and then and send them overseas. Take a look around. There is no shortage of food. If anything, we are overfed. It’s the cost to ship the food to where its needed that is a cost constraint.
Instead of making false claims about biofuels, take a closer look at the amount of money Americans are blowing on two oil wars: One to control a new oil pipeline running though Afghanistan, which the U.S. bullied away from the Taliban. The other to restrict the flow of Iraqi oil down to half of what it was before the war. These two American wars caused crude oil to double, from $45 a barrel to over $100 a barrel, in just a few years. As a result, higher fuel and transportation costs have made everything more expensive, INCLUDING FOOD. Huge amounts of fuel are being consumed by the military, driving up the demand for oil and pushing fuel prices higher. Shipping surplus food now costs way more than it used to. If anyone is going hungry, blame the oil wars before you blame biofuels.
OPEN SOURCE, PUBLISH FREELY Anonymous
The article is supported by relevant research and information from a reputable international agricultural institute. You can read the full paper online. I don’t see support for the claims in the above comment, which was apparently written anonymously, nor have I found support in any other publication. However, they’re often made by those in the biofuel industry.
I think it’s important to note that von Braun has hope for the future of biofuels, but with the current technology and policies, the impacts weigh disproportionately on the poor and the environment. For example, here’s another article from today’s New York Times:
Pollution is Called a Byproduct of a ‘Clean’ Fuel
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