The world's paying a heavy price for the biofuel gold rush

The cost of food is up and the environment is suffering, says Alex Orr

ALL the diesel and petrol bought from forecourts in the UK must now contain 2.5 per cent biofuels – made in part from crops like corn or sugar – with a European Union target of ten per cent by 2020. It is, however, a policy that, unbeknown to the vast majority of drivers, is putting millions of vulnerable people and the environment at risk, exacerbating climate change, and contributing to soaring food prices.

When first formulated, the EU biofuel target appeared sensible. Europe, after all, had a thriving biofuel industry that offered significant potential for reducing greenhouse gases from oil-powered transport. Beyond this, biofuels could be imported and the demand would stimulate similar industries around the world. However, the law of unintended consequences has kicked into effect. In the rush to make our exhaust emissions greener, worldwide biofuel production has been over-stimulated, with dire consequences.

Industrial conglomerates all over the world have not been slow to recognise there was money to be made from turning foodstuffs into alcohol, in growing oil crops rather than cereals and in ploughing up the world's forests and peat bogs for biofuel plantations. As a result, cheap biofuel is flooding into Europe, depressing indigenous European production and reducing agricultural output for human consumption.

While the sustainability plan envisaged biofuel produced from the surpluses and waste that inevitably accompanies food production, the reality has been that conglomerates have found it more profitable to grow fuel than food. The financial attraction of biofuel production has accelerated pressures on virgin forest. It has been estimated that for an emissions saving of ten per cent come 2020, the developed world will have been indirectly responsible for the destruction of another tenth of the world's forests.

People in poor countries are also being driven off their land to make way for new biofuel plantations, working in punishing conditions for a pittance. Combined with the large-scale drive in the US to produce bioethanol from maize, this is contributing to soaring food prices, depriving the world of vital land to grow crops just at the time when climate change is inducing drought in large areas of Africa and Asia. As a result, world food prices have soared by 45 per cent in the last nine months, according to the UN.

It is time for the UK Government to put a stop this misguided policy and to urge the EU to do likewise until a thorough investigation into the impact of biofuels has been completed and credible and enforceable standards are in place, guaranteeing that biofuels make neither climate change nor poverty worse. Unless they do, the lives and livelihoods of poor people around the world will be put at increased risk.

Alex Orr is a board member of the European Movement