TORONTO – The week that the House of Commons finally passed government legislation requiring subsidized biofuel content in Canadian fuels, two international organizations issued a report urging governments to rethink biofuel support.
Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said the negative biofuel report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the Paris-based Organization for Economic Development and Co-operation was not credible.
“I welcome the reports but I shake my head in that they … I don’t think they’ve gotten it right,” said the minister. “They’re lumping us all into the same basket as far as subsidies go.”
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In fact, Canada has a good balance and will see only five percent of productive land go to biofuel feedstock production, which will have no effect on world food prices, he said.
In Ottawa, Liberal and Conservative MPs combined May 28 to give final approval to Bill C-33 and send it to the Senate. New Democrat and Bloc Québécois MPs voted against it, arguing biofuel demand is a problem in rising food prices and the environmental benefits of biofuel use are far from certain.
The amendments to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act will allow a mandate of five percent ethanol in gasoline by 2010 and two percent biofuel in diesel by 2012.
Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz hailed it as a major policy breakthrough for farmers with new markets for their crops, for rural communities with new potential for biofuel plants and jobs and for consumers who can use a more environment-friendly fuel.
The next day in Paris, the FAO and the OECD issued a report that projected higher grain prices into the foreseeable future with disastrous consequences for development and the world’s poor.
