International Herald Tribune
By Eric Holt-Giménez
Published: July 10, 2007

The term "biofuels" suggests renewable abundance: clean, green, sustainable assurance about technology and progress. This pure image allows industry, politicians, the World Bank, the United Nations and even the International Panel on Climate Change to present fuels made from corn, sugarcane, soy and other crops as the next step in a smooth transition from peak oil to a yet-to-be-defined renewable fuel economy.

June 26, 2007
Contact: Marilyn Borchardt at 510-654-4400 ext 234

Letter to the Editor

Victor Davis Hanson's recent column titled The Impending Food Fight illustrates the need to study the potential impacts of the current agro-fuels mania. As Mr. Hanson noted, food prices are rising at the rate of 10 percent per year. Increases in food prices will most heavily burden low-income families, many of whom are already struggling to avoid hunger as reflected in the dramatic increase in clients to food banks and soup kitchens.

Special to the Des Moines Register
February 11, 2007
By Eric Holt-Gimenez and Kevin Fingerman

Biofuels, derived from everything from corn to French-fry grease, are being widely touted in corporate advertisements, news stories and recently in the president's State of the Union address as a silver-bullet solution to global warming, the savior of depressed rural economies and the key to reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

The apparent free lunch of crop-based fuel can't satisfy our energy appetite - and it will not be free, or environmentally sound. Dedicating all present U.S. corn and soybean production to biofuels would meet only 12 percent of our gasoline demand and 6 percent of diesel demand. On average, corn ethanol - the leading biofuels candidate in the United States - provides only a 13 percent reduction of greenhouse gases compared to gasoline. This advantage is lost if, as happens in South America, carbon-capturing forests are felled to make way for biofuel crops.

The Berkeley Daily Planet www.berkeleydailyplanet.com

News Analysis By Miguel A. Altieri and Eric Holt-Gimenez (02-06-07)

With royal fanfare, British Petroleum just donated $500 million in research funds for UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois to develop new sources of energy—primarily biotechnology to produce biofuel crops. This comes on the anniversary of Berkeley’s hapless research deal with seed giant Novartis ten years ago. However, at half a billion dollars, the BP grant dwarfs Novartis’ investment by a factor of 10. The graphics of the announcement were unmistakable: BP’s corporate logo is perfectly aligned with the flags of the Nation, the State, and the University.

“Courage is a muscle – the more you use it, the stronger it gets,” declared Rodolfo Robles, a Guatemalan labor leader who survived years of death threats for his organizing. To all the good people who are hopping mad about the US Congress' approval of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), Rolfo would say, keep organizing.

On June 12, 2005, the finance ministers of the G8 finance ministers agreed to cancel the debt of eighteen of the world's most heavily indebted poor countries. It is impossible not to welcome the decision, given that debt payments have been systemically draining resources from urgent social priorities. However, we must not be overly sanguine about the agreement, or deceived that the debt cancellation marks any kind of shift in the economic and social priorities of the G8.

by Kirsten Schwind and Hollace Poole-Kavana

Originally published on June 21, 2005 on CommonDreams.org

Monsanto's announcement of their plans to purchase Seminis, the largest fruit and vegetable seed producer in the world, was quickly followed by a statement that Monsanto does not intend to apply biotech to develop these seeds-at least not yet. This is a curious assertion from a dominant biotech company.

The question of how to insure meaningful participation by the rural poor in discussing the benefits and drawbacks of GMOs cannot be abstracted from vast power asymmetries that characterize global and regional food systems - in particular, small growers lack of access to land, cultural appropriate and scale-relevant infrastructure and technology, and market opportunities on fair terms. The manner in which GE technologies are developed reinforces these inequalities - techniques are selected on the basis of their promise to extend private proprietary control over seed markets and expand market shares for proprietary herbicides; these technologies are then "presented" to the poor as the means of insuring higher yields, with discussion limited to the virtues, or lack thereof, of their further application/dissemination.