Biofuels not forcing food price up
(Farmer's Guardian) -- FOOD prices have been driven up by a lack of political leadership – not biofuels – a leading crop expert has claimed.
Urging politicians not to scrap mandatory biofuel targets, Richard Whitlock, from agricultural experts Frontier, said that the world was not short of land or food and that political dithering was fuelling the current food crisis.
“The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation say that one billion people do not get enough food but 50 per cent of all the food we produce in the world is wasted and millions of square kilometres of land are available for agricultural production,” he said.
Mr Whitlock said that the greatest input into the rise in food prices was energy, not biofuels and that sustainable biofuels offered real greenhouse gas savings against fossil fuels. He said the government must hold firm in the face of NGO calls to scrap biofuel targets.
“Biofuel production uses a relatively small proportion of land,” he said.
Urging politicians not to scrap mandatory biofuel targets, Richard Whitlock, from agricultural experts Frontier, said that the world was not short of land or food and that political dithering was fuelling the current food crisis.
“The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation say that one billion people do not get enough food but 50 per cent of all the food we produce in the world is wasted and millions of square kilometres of land are available for agricultural production,” he said.
Mr Whitlock said that the greatest input into the rise in food prices was energy, not biofuels and that sustainable biofuels offered real greenhouse gas savings against fossil fuels. He said the government must hold firm in the face of NGO calls to scrap biofuel targets.
“Biofuel production uses a relatively small proportion of land,” he said.
