World Bank report: Agrofuels responsible for hunger crisis

Just as talks on the current food and climate change crises were taking place at the G8 Summit in Japan, the British newspaper The Guardian reported a potentially controversial World Bank study that had been held back until then. The study assigns most of the blame for the current food crisis to the production of agrofuels, contradicting all the official explanations as to its causes that had been provided so far.

According to the study, it is not the increasing consumption of meat, but the production of fuels from plants that has caused food prices to increase by up to 75%. While the USA stated that agrofuel production was responsible for only 3% of the price rise, the World Bank’s own estimates had been from only 20-30%.

The new World Bank study pinpoints the influence of agrofuels on food prices in three specific areas: firstly, the direct use of food crops for fuel production (a third of the corn produced in the USA is turned into ethanol, while half of all plant oils in the EU are used to manufacture agrodiesel); secondly, the conversion of land; and thirdly, increased speculation on the agricultural markets.

The World Bank study strongly emphasises the fact that agrofuels are not a practicable solution for the pressing global concerns in the areas of climate, energy and agriculture. The G8 governments must respond to the study’s findings with clear political signals, for it is primarily the leading industrialised nations and their policies that are responsible for the worldwide hunger crisis. The latest Action Aid report, “Cereal Offenders”, also compiles some of the important facts on this topic.

Article in The Guardian