Biofuels – July 6

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Biofuel demand to push up food prices
John Vidal, The Guardian
Food prices will rise in the next 10 years as nearly twice as much sugar cane, maize and oilseed rape is grown to fuel cars, and people in rapidly developing countries adopt meat-based diets, says the UN in its annual assessment of farming trends.
(5 July 2007)

Biofuels Could Reduce Poverty Gap
Aoife White, AP
Biofuels will help reduce the global gap between rich and poor nations by making many developing countries energy exporters, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva said Thursday.

“Consider that everyone has the technology and the knowledge to dig a little hole of 30 centimeters to plant an oil plant that could produce energy, the energy they couldn’t produce in the 20th century,” he said.

He told an international biofuels conference in Brussels that the biofuels boom was an opportunity that rich nations in Europe and elsewhere had to give to the poor countries of the world – referring to ethanol tariffs that have limited Brazilian exports to the European Union.
(5 July 2007)

Inflation fears smother China’s ethanol drive
Niu Shuping & Nao Nakanishi , Reuters
Beijing is putting the brakes to China’s ethanol production drive after increases in corn prices worldwide rekindled worries over inflation and food security.

A shortage of raw materials — because of dwindling arable land, difficulties in importing and a rush enmasse by state firms into the once Beijing-sanctioned arena — is pushing up grain prices and could throw a spanner in the works of one of the world’s largest ethanol production campaigns.

A recent climb in pork prices — blamed partly on swelling corn feed costs — served as a wake-up call to Beijing, which had promoted biofuels as a means to wean the country off imported oil and secure income for hundreds of millions of farmers.
(4 July 2007)