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UN Calls World’s Biofuel Push Led By Brazil As Crime Against Humanity
By Mr Ethanol | October 30, 2007
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Brazzil Magazine:
A United Nations expert has condemned the growing use of crops to produce biofuels as a replacement for gasoline as a crime against humanity. The UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, said he feared biofuels would bring more hunger. Growth in the production of biofuels has helped to push the price of some crops to record levels.
Ziegler’s remarks, made at the UN headquarters in New York, are clearly designed to grab attention.
He complained of an ill-conceived dash to convert foodstuffs such as corn and sugar into fuel, which created a recipe for disaster. It was, he said, a crime against humanity to divert arable land to the production of crops which are then burned for fuel and called for a five-year ban on the practice.
Within that time, according to Ziegler, technological advances would enable the use of agricultural waste, such as corn cobs and banana leaves, rather than crops themselves to produce fuel.
The growth in the production of biofuels has been driven, in part, by the desire to find less environmentally-damaging alternatives to oil. The United States is also keen to reduce its reliance on oil imported from politically unstable regions.
But the trend has contributed to a sharp rise in food prices as farmers, particularly in the US, switch production from wheat and soybeans to corn, which is then turned into ethanol. More.
Topics: Brazil, Ethanol, Negatives |
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