on Agrofuels
March 2008
This issue of EYFA newsletter is about AGROFUELS – a false solution to climate change and the ongoing ecological and energy crisis. We chose this topic, because, at the moment, agrofuels are one of the most serious threats to climate, food supply, human rights and biodiversity.
If you want to suggest a topic or have news to share - write to us!
eyfa[at]eyfa.org
**Contents
1. What are agrofuels?
2. Agrofuel Quiz
3. Biofuelwatch
4. Call for a moratorium on agrofuels
5. Actions against biofuels
6. Further reading
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[1] What are agrofuels?
Agrofuels are combustible fuels made from organic material produced on a large scale. Most commonly used agrofuels are ethanol and biodisel. Ethanol is often made of corn and sugarcane, and biodiesel is made of palm, soybeans, canola or other plant oils. Agrofuels are also referred to as 'biofuels' but agrofuels is a much better term – it expresses what is really happening: agribusiness producing fuel from plants to sustain a wasteful, destructive and unjust global economy.
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[2] Agrofuel Quiz
1. Do agrofuels really mitigate climate change? [No]
2. Does agrofuel production exhaust resources and degrade biodiversity? [Yes]
3. Does the structure of global agrofuel production threaten food security? [Yes]
4. Is there a link between agrofuel monoculture plantations and human rights violations? [Yes]
5. Are agrofuels a promotional instrument for GE crops? [Yes]
6. Is there another solution? [Yes]
1. Do agrofuels really mitigate climate change?
Agrofuels do not mitigate climate change, but instead, accelerate it. Rainforests, peatlands and other ecosystems that store carbon, stabilize climate and create rainfall, are being destroyed to make way for agrofuel plantations - this accelerates climate change by destabilizing climate and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Agrofuels are developed within the intensive, mechanised, agro-industrial paradigm, using massive monocultures and inputs of fertiliser and pesticide. This produces high greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, crops used for agrofuel production are often transported from one side of the planet to the other – also resulting in greenhouse gas emissions.
Due to the expansion of agrofuel plantations and other developments, the Amazon rainforest may be approaching a point where deforestation will have reduced the vegetation so much that it can no longer maintain its rainfall cycle, thus threatening much or all of the ecosystem with potentially rapid die-back and desertification. The degradation of the Amazon rainforest will irreversibly spur climate change.
2. Does large scale agrofuel production exhaust resources and degrade biodiversity?
Agrofuels are mainly produced in the global South and exported to industrialized countries in order to satisfy their energy demand. Agrofuels are considered renewable since crops can be grown annually, however the inputs, including non-polluted water, fertile soil, and fertilizers, are finite resources within given regions. Thus, agrofuels cannot be called renewable energy resources. Evidence suggests that monoculture crops for agrofuel such as oil palm, soya, sugar cane and maize lead to further erosion of food sovereignty and food security, threaten local livelihoods, biodiversity, water supplies and increase soil erosion and desertification.
3. Does the structure of global agrofuel production threaten food security?
Agrofuels compete for land and resources with other agricultural products, especially food. As such, the surge in agrofuel production presents a threat to the global food supply, to hunger alleviation, and the ability of Southern nations to attain food sovereignty.
The problem is simple, land used for food production is converted into agrofuels plantations. This increases prices of food and land, and destroys family farmers' livelihoods, by turning agricultural land over to servicing the energy commodity market and reducing food production.
Small farmer organizations around the world have come out against converting farmland to agrofuel crop production. Even the United Nations (UN) announced that this policy to destine productive lands and cultivations to feed cars, instead of using them to feed people is a crime against humanity. [There are 850 million people who suffer from hunger and 18,000 children die every day.]
4. Is there a link between agrofuel monoculture plantations and human rights violations?
Evidence show that agrofuel production in the South violates human rights, including indigenous peoples' land rights, as local communities are expelled, often violently, from their forest and agricultural lands to make way for corporate-run monoculture plantations. Examples of expropriation of land and water resources from people by multinational corporations are found in Indonesia, Brazil, Paraguay, Columbia and India.
5. Are agrofuels a promotional instrument for GE crops?
A new generation of agrofuels, so called second generation, is largely based on the use of GE crops, which imposes the control of agricultural production by multinational corporations and threatens biodiversity. In most cases, GM crops used for agrofuels belong to biotech giants such as US corporation Monsanto, and Swiss corporation Syngenta.
The STOP GM TREES campaign points out multi-billion projects for development of GE trees for future production of paper and biofuels. Development of GM tree plantations threatens to worsen global warming, destroy native forests, devastate biodiversity and turn forest-dependent communities into refugees. Hundreds of outdoor test plots of GE trees have been established around the world.
6. Is there another solution?
Agrofuels perpetuate the structural problems generated by urban conglomerates, supplied by goods transported from different places around the planet, that oblige people and goods to move increasingly over longer distances feeding off a never ending demand of energy. The only way to mitigate climate change is to offset the existing energy demand by reducing energy use.
Agrofuels will not help to mitigate climate change, instead, agrofuels will exacerbate already unsustainable trade in agricultural products that depends largely on the exploitation of countries of the global South to meet the needs of the richer North.
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[3] Biofuelwatch
Biofuelwatch campaigns against the use of bioenergy from unsustainable sources such as biofuels, which are linked to accelerated climate change, deforestation, bio-diversity losses, human rights abuses, including the impoverishment and dispossession of local populations, water and soil degradation, loss of food sovereignty and food security.
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[4] Call for a moratorium on agrofuels
Over 190 organizations from the North and South are asking for a moratorium of 5 years for agrofuels. They call for an immediate moratorium on EU incentives for agrofuels and agroenergy from large-scale monocultures including tree plantations and a moratorium on EU imports of such agrofuels. The moratorium aims at immediate reduction of the demand for crops and trees used as agrofuel feedstocks, which would reverse current increases in commodity prices and put the brakes on the expansion of monoculture plantations for agrofuels which is threatening ecosystems, food security, communities and the global climate.
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[5] Action against biofuels
A group of activists called 'Agrofools' disrupted the World Biofuels Market in Brussels. See more here
Coming up: April Biofools day - protests against agrofuels in UK.
See also action and protest resource page and do something!
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[6] Further reading
Declaration on agrofuels by Friends of the Earth international
GRAIN's resource page on agrofuels
Corporate Europe Observatory on Agrofuels
Agrofuels - Towards a reality check in nine key areas by Transnational Institute