Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Biofuels Offer Cure Worse Than the Disease - OECD
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/44269/story.htm

FRANCE: September 12, 2007

PARIS - Biofuels, championed for reducing energy reliance, boosting farm
revenues and helping fight climate change, may in fact hurt the environment
and push up food prices, a study suggested on Tuesday.


In a report on the impact of biofuels, the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) said biofuels may "offer a cure that is
worse than the disease they seek to heal".

"The current push to expand the use of biofuels is creating unsustainable
tensions that will disrupt markets without generating significant
environmental benefits," the OECD said.

"When acidification, fertiliser use, biodiversity loss and toxicity of
agricultural pesticides are taken into account, the overall environmental
impacts of ethanol and biodiesel can very easily exceed those of petrol and
mineral diesel," it added.

The OECD therefore called on governments to cut their subsidies for the
sector and instead encourage research into technologies that would avoid
competing for land use with food production.

"Governments should cease to create new mandates for biofuels and
investigate ways to phase them out," it said.

The OECD said tax incentives put in place in many regions, including the
European Union and the United States, to encourage biofuel output could
hide other objectives.

"Biofuel policies may appear to be an easy way to support domestic
agriculture against the backdrop of international negotiations to
liberalise agricultural trade," it said.

CUT DEMAND

Instead it encouraged members of the World Trade Organisation to step
efforts to lower barriers to biofuel imports to allow developing countries
that have ecological and climate systems more suited to biomass production.

The OECD also encouraged government to work on cutting demand for transport
fuel rather than encouraging production of so-called "green" fuels.

"A litre of gasoline or diesel conserved because a person walks, rides a
bicycles, carpools or tunes up his or her vehicle's engine more often is a
full litre of gasoline or diesel saved at a much lower cost to the economy
than subsidising inefficient new sources of supply," it said.

Biofuels, made mainly from grains, oilseeds and sugar, have been accused of
being responsible for a recent surge in farm commodities prices, along with
other factors such as lower output and tight stocks.

The OECD, which said in July that it saw biofuels keeping prices at high
levels into the next decade, said it would lead to an unavoidable
"food-versus-fuel" debate.

"Any diversion of land from food or feed production to production of energy
biomass will influence food prices from the start, as both compete for the
same input," it said.


Story by Sybille de La Hamaide