As the tragic famine in the Horn of Africa reaches epic proportions, it is a good idea to search for answers.
If we can learn from the mistakes of the past, we hopefully can prevent similar incidents in the future.
But the search for answers also requires caution. Incorrect analysis could lead down a wrong path, which helps no one in the end and diverts much-needed energies and assistance away from where it is most needed.
The food vs. fuel debate is one such path.
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The argument goes something like this: Because more of the world’s crops are being diverted to make biofuel, it has caused prices to spike and has sparked food shortages around the world.
But in actuality, while biofuel production has had a small impact on agricultural commodity prices, its effects are minuscule compared to the magnitude of the food problem we are seeing in northeastern Africa.
In a recent study conducted by the Farm Foundation, a 78-year-old, U.S. farm policy institute, five underlying factors were cited as the main drivers behind the latest rise in agriculture commodity prices.
Biofuel production and Chinese soybean demand were together named as persistent demand instigators, but were cited as one factor among several.
Other reasons were a lack of elasticity in agricultural markets, meaning due to a conglomerate of conditions, prices are less able to return to more normal levels after rapid increases and they are likely to remain high for the long term.
The study also cited poor harvest weather and tight stocks; Chinese trade and stockpiling policies; and a weak, volatile U.S. dollar.
Clearly, a large, broad-based foundation exists out there to support the present runup in commodity prices.
As well, to place the blame for world hunger at biofuel’s doorstep ignores damning evidence from those regions where the need is greatest. Corrupt or non-existent governments, civil strife, poor technology for seeding, crop inputs, harvest and storage all play major roles in keeping food from the mouths of the hungry in underdeveloped areas.
Weather phenomena such as drought and floods, as well as civil wars and poor distribution systems that are unable to quickly and effectively get food to needed areas also are to blame.
Were the planet to stop biofuel production tomorrow, the hunger problems of today would not magically go away. And if we were to expand the food vs. fuel argument to other crop uses, then we are keeping food from the hungry by making plastics from corn and other grains, by feeding grain to livestock, using it to sweeten soft drinks and even by using grain as bait in rodent poison.
Of course stopping such uses would be counterproductive. The market has a way of leveling out its supply-demand ratios despite our best efforts to control it.
It is time to put to bed the argument that biofuel has no place in a healthy agricultural economy and that it cannot exist within a well-planned, well-fed international community.
Biofuel production is here to stay and to blame it for the sins of world hunger and high food prices is to forever condemn us to repeating the mistakes of the past. For no solutions will be found where there are none to be had.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Joanne Paulson collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
