Biofuels and world hunger

Biofuels are conservatively estimated to have been responsible for at least 30 per cent of the global food price spike in 2008 that pushed 100 million people into poverty and drove some 30 million more into hunger, according to the report, Jatropha Biodiesel Fever in India, SiS 36). Jatropha has been hyped as a miracle non-food biofuel crop that would simply grow in marginal areas not suitable for food crops. But there was clear evidence that it would only deliver anywhere near the promised 1,300 litres of oil per ha when grown in fertile land with plenty of water, and that's what companies have set their eyes on.

In Tanzania, jatropha is being grown in areas with good rainfall and fertile soils. In Sahel regions of Senegal, jatropha will only survive with irrigation; and it's a similar story in Swaziland, which is suffering persistent drought.

Jatropha is also promoted as offering employment and livelihoods. But the evidence is otherwise. Employment is often sporadic, being labour intensive during planting and very little until harvesting. In India, where jatropha is becoming well established the promise of high yields has remained unproven regardless of whether they are grown on fertile or poor soils. The initial forecast was that it would only be cost-competitive if yields reached 3-6 tonnes of seeds per ha per year. Private companies have now had to revise projections down to 1.8-2 tonnes per ha, but even that remains to be achieved.

And worse has come from reports on the ground:

‘Until now I haven't got any seeds from this jatropha. I feel bad. Now it is almost four years and I am not getting any income. There is no improvement.’ Wanjang Agitok Sangma, in India said.

In northeast India, local farmers and communities were being enticed to experiment with jatropha. Raju Sona grew jatropha for one year on land he used to grow vegetables for his family. ‘No one will buy jatropha. People said if you have a plantation then surely you have a good market, but we didn't see such good market. When I got the message that there was no market, I got discouraged. I was very upset. I felt very bad. I expected profit. I threw it [the seeds] away.’ He went back to growing food, adding. ‘If we plant jatropha we will have a problem because [it means] we have to buy food from outside. Vegetables are very expensive [so] we can save money with all the things we grow - we are cultivating potatoes and cabbages. If the land is planted professionally, it could grow 4 000 to 6 000 cabbages in six months to sell in the market. This is good land for growing ginger, onions and garlic.’

Another farmer in India, Parindra Gohain (alias), said: ‘Until now we have had no income from the jatropha plantation. They told me it would be two years before we would have income, but it is already three years. People are a little down now because the whole project is already four years running and there is no income. I still hope that I will get profit otherwise I will pull up the plants.’

COMPROMISED FOOD SECURITY AND LABOUR CONDITIONS

Some farmers were tempted to sell their land in return for employment, only to find that the promised level of pay failed to materialise, and the low earnings left them unable to buy sufficient food. One farmer in Senegal, Mamadou Bah (alias) said: ‘I and the community expected to increase our cash income and revenues by working on the plantation. Our food is insufficient because we gave away our land. We have to fight for our rights and find alternatives to fill the gap in food and livelihoods.’

‘Instead of farming their land, people go to work for the [biofuel] company. There are now fewer farmers involved in farming their own land. Food is becoming a problem.

‘The price of food has been increasing every now and then. The increasing food prices have to do with food shortages within the village due to lower production on the farms,’ Tanzanian farmer Aailyah Nyondo (alias) said.

In Ghana, Sanatu Yaw told ActionAid: ‘The shea nuts I am able to pick during the year help me to have my children in school, to buy cloth and also to supplement the household's food needs when the harvest from my husband's farm runs out. But this year I could not get much because of the trees that have been cut. Now they have destroyed the trees so we have lost a good source of income forever, yet we have not been paid anything in compensation. That is why I confronted the white man at the meeting.’

Brazil is the largest industrial biofuel producer in the developing world, where the sugar cane (ethanol) plantation industry is well established. However, working conditions are often poor. Of the one million cane workers, about half are employed as cutters, mostly done by hand, in intense heat for long hours; and a number of deaths have been reported. The government's own investigations uncovered virtual slave labour conditions, exploitative subcontracting systems, poor sanitation and food, unfit drinking water and overcrowded living conditions. In one investigation, the team rescued 11,000 labourers working in unacceptable conditions.

POLICY GOT AHEAD OF SCIENCE

More and more scientists are providing evidence that most biofuels currently used actually release more GHGs compared to fossil fuels, and uses more fossil fuels to produce [2. 4] (see Biofuels = Biodevastation, Hunger & False Carbon Credits, in ‘Food Futures Now: *Organic *Sustainable *Fossil Fuel Free’, ISIS publication).

Unfortunately, all of the figures currently used in EU legislation in the recently agreed Renewable Energy Directive (RED) are out-of-date, and over-optimistic about the carbon emissions and energy savings of the biofuels. I shall deal with the scientific evidence on the false accounting on carbon and energy savings on biofuels that conceal their huge contributions to global warming [5, 6] (Scientists Expose False Accounting for Biofuels, and Biofuels Waste Energy, SiS 49).

MORATORIUM ON INDUSTRIAL BIOFUELS

It is clear that biofuels are socially unsustainable in competing for land that should be growing food, increasing food prices and landlessness, causing widespread hunger, and depriving millions of the poorest of their livelihood. Meanwhile, evidence from real production data, and new analyses bear out what many scientists have been saying: most if not all biofuels offer no savings in energy or carbon emissions, especially when indirect emissions from deforestation and other land use changes are taken into account, as they should be.

ActionAid has reiterated the call for a global moratorium in its recommendations:
- Moratorium on further expansion of industrial biofuel production and investment
- Ensure member states do not lock into industrial biofuels in their 2010 national action plans
- Reduce transport and energy consumption
- End targets and financial incentives for industrial biofuels
- Support small-scale sustainable biobuels in the EU and abroad

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* This article was first published by The Institute of Science in Society
* Dr Mae-Wan Ho is a geneticist and the director of The Institute of Science in Society.

REFERENCES

[1] Meals per gallon, the impact of industrial biofuels on people and global hunger, ActionAid, 2010,http://www.actionaid.org.uk/doc_lib/meals_per_gallon_final.pdf
[2] Ho MW. 'Land rush' as threats to food security intensify. Science in Society 46, 42-45, 2010
[3] Ho MW. Jatropha biodiesel fever in India. Science in Society 36, 47-48, 2007.
[4] Ho MW. In Ho MW, Burcher S, Lim LC, et al. Food Futures Now, Organic, Sustainable, Fossil Fuel Free, ISIS//TWN, London/Penang, 2008. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/foodFutures.php
[5] Ho MW. Scientists expose false accounting for biofuels. Science in Society 49 (to appear).
[6] Ho MW. Biofuels waste energy. Science in Society 49 (to appear).