Strategies to develop biofuel production without sacrificing food supplies will be one of the headline issues to be tackled at a Latin America conference by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) this week in Brasilia.
FAO studies show demand, and therefore prices, for food is skyrocketing in developing countries, while interest also is growing in transforming arable land into profitable biofuel terrain.
Brazil has a leading role in the debate, being both a major agricultural and biofuel exporter.
FAO’s representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, Jose Graziano, himself a Brazilian, said that even though “there are no absolute truths in terms of biofuel, there is a positive or negative effect on food security and the environment, depending on how it is developed.”
Right now, he says, the food sector “is under speculative attack,” made vulnerable by low stocks and demand that has made it more precious.
Some countries, including Brazil, are benefiting from the extra money flowing into their coffers from exports.
But FAO sees that scenario as being volatile, according to a report on biofuel production and food security to be presented at the conference.
The report details the pros and cons of using crops to make fuel, along with the scale of exchanges, the systems used and the structure of markets dealing with the output.
It is not all negative. The report also notes that, if properly applied, biofuel programs can bring benefits to family-run farms across Latin America.
Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, on a trip to the Netherlands, denied there was a link between rising food prices and biofuels, and called on “the responsibility of the developed countries to reduce the distortions that affect the developing countries” because of farm subsidies.
The FAO conference is to be attended by ministers and senior government officials from 33 countries.
The head of the UN food agency, Jacques Diouf, told a news conference in Rome on Friday that soaring cereal prices were a growing threat to world peace and security and to the human rights of developing countries facing food crises.
At least five people have died in violent protests against high food and fuel prices in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Similar disturbances have rocked Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Madagascar, the Philippines, Indonesia and other countries in the past month.
In Pakistan and Thailand, army troops have been deployed to avoid the seizure of food from fields and warehouses.
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