“Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises,” said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. “It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat.”

Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as “the first real economic crisis of globalisation”.

The report “would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House.” The US government claims that biofuels only contribute to about 3% in increased food prices. Senior development sources have said that the report “has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.”

But it’s not just USA who should feel embarrassed by the findings in the report. The European Union is also a big player in the biofuel world.

Recently the European Environment Agency’s (EEA) Scientific Committee called for the suspension of EU’s target to increase the share of biofuels used in transportation to 10% by 2020. The committee has called for a new, “comprehensive scientific study on the environmental risks and benefits of biofuels” before any targets should be set.

And it wasn’t long ago Jean Ziegler, UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, called for the suspension of biofuels production saying biofuels are a “crime against humanity.” And before that, Finance Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said that “it is “outrageous” that developed countries are turning food crops into biofuels while billions of people in the developing countries are living on the edge and trying to cope with escalating food prices”.

And even more pressure is expected to come from the British governments own report on the impact of biofuels, the Gallagher Report.

“The Guardian has previously reported that the British study will state that plant fuels have played a “significant” part in pushing up food prices to record levels. Although it was expected last week, the report has still not been released.”

Have our car-fetish really taken us this far? Do we actually approve and like the idea to transform food into fuel to keep our gas-guzzling cars running, no matter what the costs are?

Jean Ziegler, UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, yesterday called for the suspension of biofuels production saying biofuels are a “crime against humanity.”

“Biofuels, with today’s current production methods, are a crime against a great part of humanity. They’re an intolerable crime, and I requested the United Nations General Assembly in New York in my last report to the Human Rights Council that a moratorium be imposed as a five-year ban against this transformation.”

The comment was made during an emergency summit in Switzerland where the UN discusses ways to tackle the global food crisis.

Ziegler said later in an interview with Al Jazeera that “burning food today so as to serve the mobility of the rich countries is a crime against humanity”.

According to Jean Ziegler biofuels is a major cause for the food crisis that has thrown millions into poverty. And he is not alone in arguing this.

The European Environment Agency’s (EEA) Scientific Committee recently called for the suspension of EU’s target to increase the share of biofuels used in transport to 10% by 2020. The committee wants a new and “comprehensive scientific study on the environmental risks and benefits of biofuels” before any targets should be set.

We are already now starting to see riots and protests around the world that have been triggered by the lack of resources. And unfortunately this is a sight we will see more and more of in the future.

People are protesting in Haiti, Argentina, Cambodia, Indonesia, Egypt, Bolivia, Senegal and Yemen because of rising food costs or because they can’t even buy any food – cause there isn’t any.

The FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, warns that the crisis is much worse than previously thought. According to a new report released earlier this month 37 countries around the world are currently facing food crises.

FAO urges “all donors and International Financing Institutions to increase their assistance or consider reprogramming part of their ongoing aid in countries negatively affected by high food prices”.

Sir John Holmes, undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, warns that the rising food price threatens global security and will undermine already weak governments.

“We are seeing a new face of hunger. We are seeing more urban hunger than ever before. We are seeing food on the shelves but people being unable to afford it.”

The food prices are rising due to many different things that are linked together like a huge global ecosystem.

When our global population grows at record speeds the demand for food and other resources also grows.

And when the oil reserves shrink the price on gas and oil rises and makes it harder to sustain our global trade system. Farmers must pay more for their gas to their tractors and equipments and shipping the food around also costs more due to the rising fuel costs.

At the same time farmers face climate changes (that our addiction to oil have created) that reduces their harvests.

Now we are even trying to satisfy our oil addiction and car-fetish by replacing the oil with different biofuels (that are overall worse than the oil).

The European Environment Agency’s (EEA) Scientific Committee recently called for the suspension of EU’s target to increase the share of biofuels used in transport to 10% by 2020. The committee calls for a new, “comprehensive scientific study on the environmental risks and benefits of biofuels” before any targets should be set.

The rising demand for meat is also a part of the problem.

But no matter how much we try to stop our unsustainable food and resource system and move over to a more local and sustainable system the food crisis will still remain a big issue around the world, now and further ahead in the future.

Now maybe the only thing that can save us is the rationing of greenhouse gas emissions as well as our provisions, especially the meat, worldwide.

Image Credit: UN World Food Programme. Photo by Giuseppe Bizzarri.

The committees concerns are summarised below:

Biofuel production based on first generation technologies does not optimally use biomass resources with regard to fossil energy saving and to greenhouse gas reduction. Technologies for direct heat and electricity generation should be preferred because they are more economically competitive and more environmentally effective than biofuel production for vehicles.

Biomass utilisation implies combustion of very valuable and finite resources from our living environment. These resources ought to be preserved wherever possible. Therefore biomass utilisation must necessarily go hand in hand with energy efficiency improvements. This is not yet the case for the majority of applications in the automotive and residential sectors.

The EEA has estimated the amount of available arable land for bioenergy production without harming the environment in the EU (EEA Report No 7/2006). In the view of the EEA Scientific Committee the land required to meet the 10 % target exceeds this available land area even if a considerable contribution of second generation fuels is assumed. The consequences of the intensification of biofuel production are thus increasing pressures on soil, water and biodiversity.

The 10 % target will require large amounts of additional imports of biofuels. The accelerated destruction of rain forests due to increasing biofuel production can already be witnessed in some developing countries. Sustainable production outside Europe is difficult to achieve and to monitor.

The overambitious 10 % biofuel target is an experiment, whose unintended effects are difficult to predict and difficult to control. Therefore the Scientific Committee recommends suspending the 10 % goal; carrying out a new, comprehensive scientific study on the environmental risks and benefits of biofuels; and setting a new and more moderate long-term target, if sustainability cannot be guaranteed.

The European Environment Agency’s Scientific Committee consists of 20 independent scientists from 15 different EEA member countries. The committee helps the EEA Management Board and the Executive Director by “providing scientific advice and delivering professional opinions on any scientific matter” that the EEA might undertake.

The EEA is located in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. EEA currently consists of 27 EU member states, 3 European Economic Area members (Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein), Switzerland and Turkey.