September 27, 2007

 

UN official calls for 5-year moratorium on biofuel production

 

 

One of the UN's top food policy officials has called for a five-year moratorium on biofuel production to relieve the strain on grain supplies, according to a draft report leaked to the press in Geneva.

 

Jean Ziegler, the Special Rapporteur to the UN for the Right to Food, wrote that, "Agrofuel is unacceptable if it brings greater hunger and water scarcity for the poor in developing countries. The Special Rapporteur therefore calls for a five-year moratorium on production using current methods to allow time to devise technologies and regulatory structures...to protect against negative environment, social and human rights impacts," Ziegler wrote.

 

He recommended other energy-saving measures in the meantime, such as reductions in consumption, and called for non-food crops to be used as fuel, such as agricultural waste like sugarcane bagasse.

 

He also recommended that the burgeoning biofuels sector be geared toward family agriculture "rather than industrial models of agriculture, to ensure more employment and rural development."

 

In Sao Paulo, Brazilian newswire Estado first reported from Geneva that Ziegler had made the recommendation in a draft document. Immediately after, Brazilian diplomats responded to the debate at the Human Rights Council of the U.N. in Geneva, saying that sugarcane ethanol in Brazil was bringing economic development to the country.

 

Brazil is the world's leading ethanol exporter and is currently developing a biodiesel programme that relies heavily on soyoil. 

 

Just over half of Brazil's 415 million tonnes of sugarcane crop is used to make ethanol and not sugar.

 

Brazil's ambassador to the United Nations, Sergio Florencio, told Estado, "Brazil managed to increase sugar production and ethanol production over the last three decades.

 

Brazil is the world's leading sugar exporter, exporting 1.3 million tonnes of raw sugar in August, up from 1.1 million tonnes in August 2006, according to the Brazilian Foreign Trade Ministry.

 

Brazilian diplomats argued to the UN in Geneva that sugarcane ethanol was generating income and job opportunities in rural Brazil.

 

Global demand for biofuels has pushed up the prices of basic food commodities such as soy, corn and wheat.