It's about time some big name world leaders start pointing out the reality that biofuels are not the root of our current food problems. Might ethanol be a contributor? I'm sure it doesn't help. But it's not the CAUSE. Article here.
Merkel, Like Lula, Rejects Biofuels as Root of Food-Price Rises
By Jeremy van Loon
April 17 (Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel
said soaring prices for rice, milk and other staple foods are
not related to global demand for biofuels, and can instead be
ascribed to growing affluence in developing countries.
``Millions of people are becoming wealthy, and when 100
million Chinese start drinking milk then that's going to have an
impact on food prices,'' Merkel said today in Freiberg, eastern
Germany, during a visit to a biofuel plant run by Choren
Industries GmbH. ``Those rising global food prices have nothing
to do biofuels.''
Merkel's view contrasts with that of Prime Minister Gordon
Brown, who last week wrote to leaders of the Group of Eight
nations to say the U.K. government is concerned biofuels made
from foods such as sugar cane and corn are stimulating inflation
and pushing up food prices around the world. President Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, the world's top sugar cane
grower, has repeatedly rejected criticism of biofuel production.
``Food is expensive because the world wasn't prepared to
see millions of Chinese people, millions of Indians and Africans
eating three times a day,'' Lula told reporters in Brasilia
yesterday.
Merkel is scheduled to visit Brazil during a week-long trip
to Latin America next month.
The price of rice, the staple food for half the world, has
doubled in the past year to an all-time high. Global food prices
increased 57 percent last month from a year earlier, according
to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
Countries such as Indonesia and Egypt have seen unrest over high
prices.
Crops vs Biofuels
Demand for biofuels, along with increased competition for
cropland between food and fuel uses, is taking up much of the
increase in global crop production, according to a World Bank
report released April 9. Food production is failing to keep up
with demand, the bank said.
Merkel's government aims for 20 percent of car fuel sold in
Germany to comprise biofuels by 2020. To meet that goal, Germany
will increase its use of two different forms of biofuel, pure
ethanol and biodiesel. The European Union wants to power 10
percent of transportation in the region with biofuels by 2020.
The chancellor was joined in Freiberg by Daimler AG Chief
Executive Dieter Zetsche and Volkswagen AG Chief Executive
Officer Martin Winterkorn to discuss the opportunities for
synthetic biofuels.
Synthetic, or second-generation, biofuel is made from plant
waste, wood trimmings and straw, unlike ethanol which is
distilled from corn or sugar cane and competes with the
production of food stuffs for agricultural land.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Jeremy van Loon in Freiberg at
jvanloon@bloomberg.net.
