You can’t say you didn’t know any more.

A UN official calls turning foodcrops into biofuels “a crime against humanity.” He may be overly optimistic about our future ability to turn other materials into biofuels, but at least he has the moral courage to demand that we stop starving people just to funnel money to corporate agribusinesses.

If you have any doubt about the evil of our current biofuels regime, you need only to consider who supports it: “Benjamin Chang, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said the Bush administration didn’t consider biofuel development a threat to the poor. “

UN expert seeks to halt biofuel output

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer Fri Oct 26, 9:04 PM ET

A U.N. expert on Friday called the growing practice of converting food crops into biofuel “a crime against humanity,” saying it is creating food shortages and price jumps that cause millions of poor people to go hungry.

Jean Ziegler, who has been the United Nations’ independent expert on the right to food since the position was established in 2000, called for a five-year moratorium on biofuel production to halt what he called a growing “catastrophe” for the poor.

Scientific research is progressing very quickly, he said, “and in five years it will be possible to make biofuel and biodiesel from agricultural waste” rather than wheat, corn, sugar cane and other food crops.

. . .

Ziegler called [biofuel producers'] motives legitimate, but said that “the effect of transforming hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tons of maize, of wheat, of beans, of palm oil, into agricultural fuel is absolutely catastrophic for the hungry people.”

The world price of wheat doubled in one year and the price of corn quadrupled, leaving poor countries, especially in Africa, unable to pay for the imported food needed to feed their people, he said. And poor people in those countries are unable to pay the soaring prices for the food that does come in, he added.

“So it’s a crime against humanity” to devote agricultural land to biofuel production, Ziegler said a news conference. “What has to be stopped is … the growing catastrophe of the massacre (by) hunger in the world,” he said.

As an example, he said, it takes 510 pounds of corn to produce 13 gallons of ethanol. That much corn could feed a child in Zambia or Mexico for a year, he said.

Benjamin Chang, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said the Bush administration didn’t consider biofuel development a threat to the poor.

“It’s clear we have a commitment to the development of biofuels,” he said. “It’s also clear that we are committed to combatting poverty and supporting economic development around the world as the leading contributor of overseas development assistance in the world.” . . .

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 27th, 2007 at 5:51 pm and is filed under Disaster Preparedness, Energy Future, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.