Global food security | Humanitarian organization says converting food crops to fuel continues to be a divisive issue
Global growth in biofuel production is complicating efforts to feed hundreds of millions of malnourished people around the world, said a leading official with the World Food Programme.
Ramiro Lopes Da Silva said the use of corn and other crops to produce ethanol and biodiesel continues to present challenges to the WFP, which provides more than $1 billion worth of food aid annually.
However, he stopped short of suggesting that the biofuel industry is jeopardizing the world’s most vulnerable people.
Instead, he said availability of food, water and fuel are intricately connected. Production and consumption of all three must be viewed holistically.
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“We have been monitoring carefully and closely the development of the whole biofuels industry and obviously it’s one more element in the question,” said Lopes Da Silva, who spoke in Saskatoon last week at a forum on global food security.
“With the expectation of a growing world population, we need to look at the issues of water, food and energy as a package.… Any action that we take in one of those areas is bound to have implications on the other, so we need to tackle them together.”
The debate surrounding the use of food to produce fuel has been around for years but it has garnered more attention in recent months, thanks to global production challenges in key food producing regions, most notably the United States.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, an estimated 42 percent of the U.S. corn crop — more than 4.5 billion bushels — was used to produce ethanol in 2012.
Last week, top executives with Glencore International and Olam International added more fuel to the debate, suggesting conversion of corn into ethanol contributes to higher commodity prices, reduces food availability and has the largest impact on the world’s poor.
“Ethanol production from grains and from edible oil is questionable,” Chris Mahoney, Glencore’s director of agricultural products, said during a panel discussion at an international sugar conference in Dubai.
“It has been a factor in creating a higher price environment.”
Sunny Verghese, chief executive officer with global commodities trader Olam International, called production of corn-based ethanol inappropriate.
“It does not make sense to convert corn to ethanol,” Verghese told conference delegates. “But it makes sense to convert sugarcane to ethanol.”
The WFP is one of the world’s largest humanitarian organizations.
In 2011, it procured more than 2.4 million tonnes of food valued at more than $1.2 billion.
The biofuel industry has presented new challenges in procuring food, but the WFP recognizes that there are competing interests for limited global food supplies, Lopes Da Silva said.
The adoption of new technologies, including wider acceptance of genetically modified food, will play a critical role in addressing food and fuel requirements, he added.
The WFP does not provide food aid that contains GM crops unless those crops have been approved for consumption in recipient countries.
In some cases, governments in famine-stricken nations have not endorsed the use of GM crops for human consumption.
WFP respects the policies of recipient governments, but it is also en-gaged in dispelling myths that surround genetic modification, Lopes Da Silva said.
“We engage with countries … that have restrictive policies in order to educate because in some cases, those restrictive policies come as a result of lack of knowledge.”
The amount of food required to feed the world’s population is projected to increase significantly over the next few decades.
Global population estimates are currently close to seven billion people. The UN says that number will surpass nine billion by 2050.
Lopes Da Silva said additional food production challenges related to global climate change will be most prevalent in regions that are already prone to famine.
“Looking at the climatic patterns of the last few years … it’s clear that some parts of the world where we have large issues… with food insecurity and vulnerability are going to be impacted more regularly by large scale climatic events,” he said.
“Our focus in these countries … has been more and more on how we can help these countries … to increase their resilience and self reliance.”
