Friday, April 18, 2008 Sanchez: Biofuels and monocultures By Benedicto Q. Sanchez Nature speaks
I'VE batted for biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels, principally to mitigate global warming, provided production of kasla (Jatropha curcas), sugarcane does not promote monoculture.
My caveat is not happening. Because of the high demand for biofuels, planters are rushing in to convert their farms to kasla or any crop that can be converted to the product.
Now the world is reaping not food crops but the whirlwind. And experts are saying the most frightening things. The Dr. Jekyll of agriculture has shed off its disguise to reveal the brutal Mr. Hyde underneath the ecological-friendly crop.
"Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity," says Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food. Skyrocketing food prices could lead to war among developing countries, warned Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Strauss-Kahn said that if the price spike continued, "thousands, hundreds of thousands of people will be starving. Children will be suffering from malnutrition, with consequences for all their lives."
Development gains made in the past five or 10 years could be "totally destroyed." he said, warning that social unrest could even lead to war. "As we know, learning from the past, those kinds of questions sometimes end in war."
Mind you, these Ziegler and Strauss-Kahn are sober-minded, not wackos who incessantly warn us to repent, for the end, or Armageddon, is near. Come to think of it, though, they have a point after all! The April 7, 2008 edition of Time magazine labeled biofuels as "The Clean Energy Scam." The article explained how the biofuel boom has sent global food prices skyrocketing.
Touted as locally-sourced clean, renewable, alternative energy designed to free the world from dependence on oil cartels, the burgeoning demand for bioethanol jumpstarted a domino effect. Sugarcane or corn was diverted to fuel refineries. Food processors then had to pay more to get the necessary volume of feedstock. This made food less affordable to more people. In other parts of the world, the biofuel boom fueled the clearing of forests to grow palm oil plantations.
To paraphrase a recent Inquirer editorial, the greed to cash in on huge profits should be moderated by the need to protect the environment. Greed has morphed benign crops into monsters.
I agree with Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany's development minister. She called for greater regulation of the global biofuels market to prevent its expansion driving up food prices. Wieczorek-Zeul said the world needed new rules that balance goals, including climate change mitigation, food security and social development.
May we here in Negros Occidental heed their calls. I'm still for biofuels, but I'm also for the rest of the environment, for the food security of us all.
Let biodiversity, not monoculture, rule.
(Comments are most welcome. Please send email to bqsanc@yahoo.com.)
