October 4, 2011

FAO: Biofuel should not override food security

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned Monday (Oct 3) that the need of biofuel should not sacrifice food security as the world should be alert against food scarcity.

Purushotam K. Mudbhary, senior policy officer at the Social, Economic and Policy Group of FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, said that every country has different policy towards biofuel.

"For example, India and China have policy that food should not be diverted into biofuel production. Meanwhile, some countries expend some land areas for palm oil that are produced into biodiesel. For example, Brazil has a lot of areas to produce ethanol from sugarcane," he said in a discussion during the ASEAN Food Security Conference Monday night.

He said that these countries make decisions based on their own policy.

"Decision of each country can be different. That's why, it is very difficult to provide certain figures on how much commodity we should provide for biofuel," he said.

He added that the world needs to increase food production by 70% now.

"Therefore, basically we should not sacrifice food for biofuel," said Mudbhary.