Report highlights growing hunger, energy dependency on Global South, corporate control
 
Food First/The Institute for Food & Development Policy, based in Oakland, Calif., has released a policy brief titled, “When Renewable isn’t Sustainable: Agrofuels’ and the Inconvenient Truths behind the 2007 U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act.”  The report, co-authored by Food First Executive Director Eric Holt-Giménez and program consultant Isabella Kenfield, discusses the implications of the Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS) targets for agrofuels in the 2007 U.S. Energy Bill.
 
The first inconvenient truth of the RFS mandate is the effect it is already having on food prices and supplies around the world. It is estimated that half of the U.S. corn harvest will be diverted to ethanol production by the end of 2008. Because U.S. corn accounts for some 40% of global production, increased demand for U.S. corn as feedstock for fuel impacts global markets for corn as food. As acreage planted to corn increases from rising demand, acreage for other food grains such as wheat and soybeans is reduced, raising the prices for these crops as well.  People around the world are already experiencing the food price and supply shocks that the spike in U.S. ethanol demand and consumption is causing.
 
A second inconvenient truth about the RFS mandate is that instead of offering energy independence and security, the 2007 Energy Bill actually reflects a bi-partisan, unspoken agreement to rely on imported agrofuels from the Global South. This is already leading to massive environmental destruction, loss of livelihoods and human rights abuses in agrofuels-producing regions of the South, and threatens to further economic and political instability in these regions.
 
To better understand the agrofuels boom, the authors analyze how the industry is aiding market expansion and consolidation by the giant grain, biotech and oil companies. Contrary to being “clean” and “green,” agrofuels exacerbate all of the problems currently caused by industrial agriculture—including global warming.
 
Holt-Giménez concludes that “In order to think about alternatives to agrofuels—local biofuels, conservation, wind, or solar—and in order to advance truly sustainable agricultural development at home and abroad, we need to construct an alternative food and energy context. We must challenge the political-economic context as well as the technologies, debunk the assumptions as well as the claims, and propose new relationships between producers and consumers in our food and fuel systems.”
 
To remove the artificial market incentive that created the industry—the RFS targets—Food First, with a coalition of progressive U.S. organizations, proposes a Moratorium on U.S. agrofuels.  The call for a Moratorium can be found and signed here:
 
To obtain a copy of the report, log on to www.foodfirst.org

The coalition Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) is inviting members to submit grant proposals for actions that will contribute to the following campaign objectives:
1. By the end of 2008, SOAWR will have accelerated ratification in ten countries, namely Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia and two North African Countries.
2. By the end of 2008 there will be national implementation strategies and actions generated and running in eight countries, namely Gambia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa.