Food or Fuel ? Biofuel's Heroic Assumptions

April 8th, Pacifica radio station KPFA in Berkeley, California, featured a panel entitled "Food or Fuel? Do we have to choose?" on the Sunday Salon program, hosted by Sandra Lupien.

Guests Tom Philipott, farmer-writer from North Carolina, and Isabella Kenfield, a free-lance U.S. journalist living in Brazil, were both highly critical of the biofuels boom. However, Jake Caldwell, of the Center for American Progress staked out what is probably the mainstream U.S. view. He insisted that corn ethanol was a sustainable energy source that would revitalize rural economies around the world, IF carefully regulated. He then gushed over the future potential of cellulosic ethanol, the next generation biofuel.

The notion that biofuels will be fair and green as long as they are properly regulated and made primarily from cellulosic materials (like switchgrass and trees) rests on two basic and very heroic assumptions:

Assumption #1: "The problem is fuel crops versus food crops."

This assumption misses the point that biofuels' "food versus fuel" problem is not just whether or not a particular food crop is used for fuel purposes (e.g. corn). Rather, the problem is "LAND-USE FOR FUEL versus LAND-USE FOR FOOD." More land used for fuel means less land used for food. When switchgrass and trees become fuel-crop commodities, their ecology will transform. Not only will they be intensively and industrially mono-cropped using fertilizers, pesticides, genetically-engineered seed and precious irrigation water (thus erasing any environmental service they once provided) but if they produce more money than food crops, they will planted on cropland as well as conservation land. A prime example of this are Eucalyptus trees that used to be ecologically sound when they fed Koala Bears and provided windbreaks... Now because they are farmed for pulp they are the scourge of tropics, the monocropped "green deserts" of the Global South. Fuel trees will be no different. Cellulosic get us nothing except the industrial fuel encroachment on BOTH farm and conservation land.

Assumption #2: "Biofuels' problems can be solved through proper social and environmental regulation."

This assumes that there is enough political will and government capacity to regulate the powerful biofuels junta of oil, genetic engineering, grain and automotive industries. This is an historically weak proposition in the U.S. and patently absurd for the Global South. Even Brazil—the country with the most regulatory capacity in Latin America—is unable to control the expansion of industrial farming into the Cerrado and the Amazon, prevent the displacement of smallholders, or keep the cane industry from utilizing coerced labor. The Brazilian Environmental Ministry is virtually powerless to control construction, petroleum or agribusiness pollution. In the United States, the USDA and the EPA are at best blunt instruments for environmental protection, and our anti-trust laws have done nothing to keep Cargill, ADM or Monsanto from operating with impunity. The fines slapped on ADM—the largest in anti-trust history—are simply taken as the cost of doing business.

One of the dangers not addressed in the biofuels stampede is the possibility that the industry will increase, not lower food and fuel prices. High fuel prices usually lead to higher food prices because of increased transportation costs. With biofuels, because food crops compete with fuel crops for land, higher food prices will now drive up fuel prices. How? More land planted to fuel, edges out food crops, making food more expensive. This signalls farmers to plant more land to food instead of fuel. This pushes up the price of fuel... For the agri-foods industry, this is a perfect storm. Consumers and the environment may see fewer benefits.

Despite their many pitfalls, agro-fuels are rapidly transforming our food and fuel systems. They plough onward not because they are green or fair, but because they allow grain, oil and genetic engineering industries to consolidate their market power and re-position themselves financially and politically for a post-oil economy.

Before we join ADM, Monsanto, British Petroleum and friends on the bioenergy bandwagon (cellulosic or otherwise), this country needs to have a public debate on the winners and losers in the biofuels boom.

Kudos to KPFA for keeping the discussion open.

respond to eholtgim at foodfirst dot org