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UN expert calls for five-year freeze on biofuel production

A UN expert called the growing practice of converting food crops into biofuel "a crime against humanity," saying it is creating food shortages and price increases that cause millions of poor people to go hungry.

Jean Ziegler, who has been the UN independent expert on the right to food since the position was established in 2000, called on Friday for a five-year moratorium on biofuel production to stop 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.

Using biofuel instead of gasoline in cars is considered a way to cut carbon-dioxide emissions, which contribute to global warming, although some scientists say greenhouse gases released during the production of biofuel could offset those gains.

The use of crops for biofuel has being pursued especially in Brazil and the US.

Last March, US President George W. Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed an agreement committing their countries to boosting ethanol production. They said increasing the use of alternative fuels would lead to more jobs, a cleaner environment and greater independence from the whims of the oil market.

Ziegler called their motives legitimate, but said "the effect of transforming hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tonnes 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 said.

"So it's a crime against humanity" to devote agricultural land to biofuel production, Ziegler said at 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 231kg of corn to produce 49.2 liters of ethanol. That much corn could feed a child in Zambia or Mexico for a year, he said.

Benjamin Chang, a spokesman for the US mission to the UN, said the Bush administration does not 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 combating poverty."

Ziegler, a sociology professor at the University of Geneva and the University of the Sorbonne in Paris, presented a report on Thursday to the UN General Assembly's human rights committee saying a five-year moratorium on biofuel production would allow time for new technologies for using agricultural byproducts.

"The cultivation of Jatropha Curcas, a shrub that produces large oil-bearing seeds, appears to offer a good solution as it can be grown in arid lands that are not normally suitable for food crops," he said.

Also see How to cause hunger
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