Why biofuels? We shouldn't exaggerate. Everyone has the right to comment as they wish on the risks of a world food crisis but there has to be at least a minimum of respect for the truth.
Let's take the case of US maize. A considerable part of this year's harvest is used for biofuel production but just next door, Mexicans are short of maize for their staple food, tortilla. It's inadmissible. But who's responsible? Certainly not US farmers. Everyone is calling for the US to radically reduce their subsidies to farming: the WTO, developing countries, Oxfam and the EU itself. It is asserted that these subsidies make poor countries go hungry and cause food shortages in the world. Moreover, if subsidies are abolished, US farmers (as well as European, Japanese and others) only have two alternatives: either they significantly reduce their production or they find alternatives to food production. Public subsidies have been reoriented to biofuels and farmers have followed suit. US food production could partly be condemned if Washington gives in to pressure in the Doha Round. Certainly the USA bears a heavy responsibility, but not the country's farmers. It is more the financiers who speculate on the costs of basic food products, who are responsible. Farmers are prepared to produce for food if we allow them to earn a reasonable income from it. Those who affirm that US maize would be available to feed poor countries if it were not used in biofuels, are liars: this maize would not exist, the harvest would very largely be abandoned, if their views prevailed.
Penny begins to drop in Brussels. This is exactly what would happen in Europe and which has, to a certain extent, already happened. EU policy guaranteeing farmers higher (artificial) prices than those on the world market when the latter collapse has met opposition, and pressure has led the EU to leave some of its productive land fallow. This policy has been imposed, not for the benefit of resting and alternating crops to let the land breathe but due to the wishes of big business and the multinationals who want to see single-crop systems developed for export. The CAP's main objective (food self-sufficiency) has been diverted by separating payments for farmers from production. The CAP made Europe self-sufficient, relaunched traditional farming production and eliminated shortages and famine. Once this objective is reached in record time (the world should take this as an example), the CAP should be corrected, abuses eradicated and excessive subsidies (which benefit business and the big distribution companies above all) abolished. But the basis of the CAP should be safeguarded. Today we're rushing towards the imposed fallow land policy. Even the European Commission is beginning to understand to what point Europe needs its agriculture over the whole of its territory.
Despite the excessive deference, in my opinion, of Mariann Fischer Boel, towards the “commercially-oriented” positions of Peter Mandelson, the current orientations of the Commission are sound with regard to both the preservation of Europe's natural heritage and its support for poor countries. Re-read these orientations in EUROPE 9657: getting rid of production ceilings and the previously introduced fallow-land policy to reduce harvests; better monitoring of the food chain, increased food aid for those who need it; taking these problems to heads of government level (who usually don't read the Agriculture Council's conclusions). There are still quite a few other factors to be added, either of principle (more explicit demands for the right of food self-sufficiency) or for technical reasons (soya, protein plant fodder, etc) but it's going in the right direction.
Starting point. A fair income for farming is also the starting point for global food policy. The most positive news comes from Afghanistan, where poppy growing for opium is gradually making way for wheat production because the latter is becoming more and more profitable. In Taliban-dominated regions this development is still impossible (drug trafficking is their main source of income) but in other zones wheat cultivation is gaining ground. This transition requires support and funding. It is something the FAO could finance, while its resources are today mainly geared, according to the Senegalese president, Abdoiulaye Wade, towards paying its 3,600 officials and subsidising “non-governmental organisations on visits and trips to luxury hotels for so-called experts instead of action on the ground”.
I'll be coming back to Mr Wade's declarations on Africa in a more generalised context, later.
(F.R.)