Say Anything Blog

Two years ago the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation expected biofuels to help eradicate hunger and poverty for up to two billion people. Yesterday the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon raised real doubt over that policy amid signs that the world was facing its worst food crisis in a generation.

Since the FAO’s report in April 2006 tens of thousands of farmers have switched from food to fuel production to reduce US dependence on foreign oil. Spurred by generous subsidies and an EU commitment to increase the use of biofuels to counter climate change, at least 8m hectares (20m acres) of maize, wheat, soya and other crops which once provided animal feed and food have been taken out of production in the US.

In addition, large areas of Brazil, Argentina, Canada and eastern Europe are diverting sugar cane, palm oil and soybean crops to biofuels. The result, exacerbated by energy price rises, speculation and shortages because of severe weather, has been big increases of all global food commodity prices.

…Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, said this week that prices of all staple food had risen 80% in three years, and that 33 countries faced unrest because of the price rises. Zoellick urged rich countries to give the UN’s World Food programme $500m for emergency aid. The bank plans to increase lending for agricultural production in Africa from $420m to $850m a year in 2009.
As the bank predicted rice price rises of 55% in 2008, violent protests against the cost of living hit Ivory Coast this week. On Thursday President Laurent Gbagbo cancelled custom duties on imported staple foods and cut taxes on rice, sugar, milk, fish, flour and oils.

In Bangladesh, where families spend up to 70% of income on food, more than 50,000 households are getting emergency food after rice price rises. A government source said: “One reason is that the overall drop in food production because of biofuels has prevented food being exported.”