LATIN AMERICA:
Food or Fuel - That Is
the Burning Question
By Walter Sotomayor
BRASILIA (IPS) - The
difficult balancing act
between fighting hunger,
producing biofuels and
defending the
environment is at the
centre of the debate at
the 30th Regional
Conference of the United
Nations Food and
Agriculture Organisation
(FAO) in the Brazilian
capital.
Experts from 33 Latin
American and Caribbean
countries, international
agencies and non-
governmental
organisations began
their technical meetings
Monday at the Brazilian
Foreign Ministry in
Brasilia.
The aim of the
conference is to assess
conditions in the
region, especially in
the light of concerns
caused by rising food
prices.
"We must find a balance
between fighting hunger,
energy security and
protecting the
environment," said José
Antonio Marcondes,
spokesman for the
Brazilian delegation at
the conference, where
meetings at ministerial
level are to be
inaugurated Wednesday by
President Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva.
"Brazil believes that
biofuels have the
potential to combat
poverty," said the
Brazilian
representative, who
stressed the importance
of including family
farms in the production
chain.
In Brazil, the region’s
largest food producer,
the government is
carrying out a number of
programmes to fight
poverty.
At the same time, the
Brazilian government
advocates the use of
biodiesel and ethanol as
fuels, an idea that is
rejected by countries
like Bolivia, Cuba,
Nicaragua and Venezuela,
which fear that ever
larger agricultural
areas will be devoted to
producing biofuels
rather than food.
"It is ethically
unacceptable to convert
areas of food production
to energy production,"
said José Arsenio
Quintero, the head of
the Cuban delegation.
However, Quintero
supported a suggestion
from Argentina and
Brazil that a voluntary
regional code of conduct
be adopted to prevent
environmental damage or
reduction of food
production.
The Brasilia meeting
debated a report
prepared by Guilherme
Schuetz, an official at
the FAO regional office.
Schuetz, a Brazilian
expert, pointed out the
risks of biofuel
production, but
suggested that they
could be minimised
through the use of
different technologies
and commitments on the
environment.
But a message sent to
the conference by U.N.
Special Rapporteur on
the Right to Food, Jean
Ziegler, Monday heated
up the debate.
Ziegler called
production of biofuels
"a crime against
humanity," because a
large proportion of food
grains is now used for
this purpose.
Critics agree that
staple food prices have
risen because of
shrinking production and
the use of cereals like
maize, or oilseeds like
soybeans, for making
biofuels.
The World Bank warned
that violent uprisings
might occur in an
estimated 33 countries
due to increased food
prices.
But such criticism was
rejected by Carlos
Porto, an international
adviser to the Brazilian
Agriculture Ministry.
"It is the United States
and the European Union
that use foods like
maize, wheat and edible
oils to make biofuels,"
he said.
FAO reported that
extreme poverty and
malnutrition had fallen
in most countries of the
region, but said that
there are still 81
million people living in
extreme poverty.
Hunger persists in the
region even when there
is a 31 percent excess
in the supply of
calories, which means
that there is enough
food for all the
population, says a FAO
study that was
distributed to the
press.
Helping countries combat
hunger is FAO’s
principal mission.
This week’s conference
will analyse regional
progress towards meeting
the United Nations
Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs), agreed by
the international
community in 2000. One
of them is to halve the
proportion of the
world’s people who
suffer from hunger by
2015, with respect to
the 1990 baseline.
FAO’s regional director
for Latin America and
the Caribbean, José
Graziano, proposed that
the state should resume
a regulatory role in the
agricultural sector as a
means of confronting the
crises that periodically
affect producers, and
especially small
farmers.
The FAO Conference,
which ends on Friday,
will consider other
issues related to food
security, including
cooperation to prevent
the cross-border
spreading of pests and
diseases that affect
food production.
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