Critics expect a new federal ethanol policy report to prove that little research went into the environmental and economic benefits of investing billions of dollars into the industry.
The report, which is expected by Oct. 10, is a response to a petition filed with the federal auditor general’s office of the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development.
“I’m looking forward to how many ways they can avoid directly answering the questions we asked,” said Glen Koroluk of Winnipeg, a community organizer for the Beyond Factory Farming Coalition.
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“Responses under this government have become increasingly political.”
The petition, filed under the federal environmental petitions rule that requires a timely response, lays out claims from both sides about whether ethanol production, distribution and use reduces greenhouse gas or other pollutant emissions.
It also cited claims last year by American environment and population researcher Lester Brown that said increasing use of farmland to produce crops for fuel will “exacerbate the number of people who are chronically hungry and malnourished, a staggering 854 million of the world population.” According to Brown, the corn required to fill an SUV tank with ethanol just once could feed one person for a year.
The petition then asks the government for details of the research used to justify the $2 billion in funding for the industry that it announced this year.
It asks for government calculations on the amount of greenhouse gas reductions expected and at what cost, the portion of Canadian farmland that would be needed to supply feedstock for an expanded biofuel industry, the jobs that will be created and the impact this will have on Canada’s international commitment to help cut world hunger in half by 2015.
On Sept. 24, Koroluk received a letter from transport minister Lawrence Cannon indicating that a number of departments were collaborating to produce the required response.
He said the coalition assumes the government developed its policy to appeal to its farm constituency and to mirror the biofuel enthusiasm shown in the U.S. without conducting the detailed analysis necessary to ensure it is sensible, effective and cost and environmentally efficient.
“I doubt they have the analysis we are asking for so it will be interesting to see how they avoid saying that,” he said.
“I don’t think biofuels is a good idea, taking land out of food production for fuel feedstock and I don’t think subsidizing that development is a good idea.”
Koroluk said the Beyond Factory Farm Coalition is questioning the government’s biofuel policy because it fits into the group’s opposition to what it considers factory farming.
“Big scale ethanol further expands the industrial model of farming and the large grain-based ethanol plants create the development of more large-scale feedlots which use the dry distillers grain.”
