Biofuel pushing global food prices up

A new report from Action Aid has revealed that biofuel testing and biofuel production could be driving up the price of food around the world.

Its report, entitled Fuel For Thought has indicated that an increase demand for biofuels could push global food prices to crisis level. European Union biofuel targets alone could push up oilseed prices by up to 33 per cent, maize up to 22 per cent, sugar up to 21 per cent and wheat up to ten per cent between now and 2020.

Laura Sullivan, ActionAid’s head of European Advocacy urges that: “If it continues to ignore the impacts of its biofuels policy on people living in some of the poorest parts of the planet, the EU will effectively be sponsoring hunger and human rights abuses on a massive scale."

The EU requires an estimated 13 to 19 million hectares of land outside Europe to meet the EU-wide targets, and the report suggested that there has been a spate of forced displacements of poor people from their land in order to cater for the requirements. 

ActionAid has called on the European Commission to investigate the full impacts of the EU’s biofuels policies on human rights in its 2012 review.

Posted by Claire Manning.