The ecological and social tragedy of crop-based biofuel production in the Americas

[Jcrowley]

The ecological and social tragedy of crop-based biofuel production in the Americas

Miguel A Altieri
Professor of Agroecology
University of California, Berkeley

Elizabeth Bravo
Red por una América Latina Libre de Transgenicos
Quito, Ecuador

The nations of the OECD—the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, who account for 56% of the planet’s energy consumption, are desperately in need of a liquid fuel replacement for oil. Worldwide petroleum extraction rates are expected to peak this year, and global supply will likely dwindle significantly in the next fifty years. There is also a great need to find substitutes for fossil fuels, which are one of the major contributors to global climate change through the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

Biofuels have been promoted as a promising alternative to petroleum. Industry, government and scientific proponents of biofuels claim that they will serve as an alternative to peaking oil, mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing farmer incomes, and promoting rural development. But rigorous research and analysis conducted by respected ecologists and social scientists suggests that the large-scale industrial boom in biofuels will be disastrous for farmers, the environment, biodiversity preservation and consumers, particularly, the poor.

In this paper we address the ecological, social and economic implications of biofuel production. We argue that contrary to the false claims of corporations that promote these “green fuels,” the massive cultivation of corn, sugar cane, soybean, oil palm and other crops presently pushed by the fuel crops industry—all to be genetically engineered—will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but will displace tens of thousands of farmers, decrease food security in many countries, and accelerate the deforestation and environmental destruction of the Global South.

http://www.foodfirst.org/node/1662

[sam sarrha]

1. i heard a tank of ethanol for a SUV = a year of food of corn an african

[TheWraith]

2. You heard insanely, massively wrong.

Ethanol isn't the greatest thing by far, but it's nowhere near what it's made out to be by bullshit FUD pieces like the one posted here.

[sam sarrha]

4. how many hundred lbs of corn makes 30 or 40 gallons of alcohol? you sound Freepish.. you go on decaf

you are way way to excitable.. it takes a hell of a lot of oil and pesticides to cultivate and fertalize corn

[sam sarrha]

5. it takes about 660 pounds corn to make 30 gallons of ethanol, thats 1.8lbs, they eat less n Darfur

it was 7,910 pounds of corn to make 328 gallons... if you take the fuel and fertilizer and sell that it would buy a lot more corn too,

i was in the peace corps in '73 in drought relief.. in west africa. buried a lot of babies. that ate less

your attitude is a bit rough.. and you are wrong, granted some eat more, alot eat less in places

[Vogon_Glory]

3. Have The Learned Professors Considered Those Shuttered Sugar Mills?

I wonder if the learned professors have considered the status of all those shuttered sugar mills and abandoned cane fields, not just in Cuba, but also in a number of countries along the Gulf Coast and in the Caribbean? Well over half of the sugar centrales in Cuba have shut down, due to rock-bottom prices and low demand. So have sugar mills and sugar cane plantations in places as different as Mexico and El Salvador. I'm sure that the now-unemployed mill workers would be delighted to see the fields growing cane again and some facility or other at work where the old sugar mills used to be providing at least some of the workers with jobs.

Would the learned professors consider those abandoned cane fields to be better utilized as cattle pastures, as they are now, instead of growing sugar cane or some other biofuel crop? At least with biofuels, the by products can be used for animal feedstocks.

Not that I'm a great fan of using ethanol to fuel internal-combustion engines. However, whatever auto company is clever enough to market fuel cells that run on alcohols is going to have much of the Latin American automobile market to itself while their competitors either lag behind the curve or wait for the oil companies to bless production of hydrogen from filthy coal.