|
|
Zimbabwe: Tread on Biofuels Cautiously
 |
 Published by the government of Zimbabwe |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
The Herald (Harare)
OPINION
4 August 2008
Posted to the web 4 August 2008
Sifelani Tsiko
Harare
WHILE there is a drive by Zimbabwe and most other African countries to develop biofuels as a response to both climate change and the rising petroleum fuel import bill, agronomists and environmentalists say this must be done cautiously so as not to threaten food security and sovereignty.
Development experts who met recently at a one-day seminar in Harare to discuss food aid and food security called on Zimbabwe and other African countries to grow more crops for food than for biofuels, given the growing threat of food riots worldwide as the poor protests against rising food prices.
"Structural adjustment policies imposed by Bretton Woods institutions removed governments from food production and this is a major cause of loss of food sovereignty," said Professor Carol Thompson, a visiting political economist from the Northern Arizona University in the United States.
"Market policies have failed the poor. Food prices are rising, they are more hungry people. The Doha Round failed recently over contentious agricultural issues because the US and the European Union failed to remove subsidies for their own farmers."
She said Zimbabwe and most other African countries were enthusiastic about biofuels programmes but warned that this flurry of initiatives would lead to food shortages and more food riots as large foreign-dominated multinationals focus more on agro-fuels production at the expense of food for the poor.
"People are beginning to compete with cars. There is a rapid rise in crop production for fuel. Large conglomerates are integrating vertically from the fields to the fuel tanks and not much to the dinner plate," she said.
"In the US, only four corporates decide what you will eat and not the US government anymore. There is a big danger that Zimbabwe and Africa might lose food sovereignty if multinationals are allowed to come in and exploit food crops for biofuels.
"Maize is a staple for people here and once it's commodified for agro-fuels production, the community identity and sustenance will be lost."
According to a 2008 World Food Programme report, there were food riots in 70 countries worldwide while 100 million more people were hungry.
The United Nations estimates that one billion people suffer from hunger and poverty, about 12 percent of all humanity.
GRAIN, a non-profit organisation which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural bio-diversity, reports that 70 percent of developing countries are net food importers as of today.
There is a large-scale planting of agro-fuel crops, particularly jatropha, in most countries in Southern Africa as governments join in the growing movement towards alternative fuels.
Large multinationals are moving in, taking over resources used by rural communities for their own survival.
Agronomists and environmentalists who met at the seminar, organised by the Community Technology Development Trust, said local people in most parts of Southern Africa would find it harder to satisfy their food and fuel needs.
"It is the rural poor who will bear the cost of the agro-fuel boom while reaping few of the benefits," said Mr Andrew Mushita, an agronomist and director of CTDT.
"The shortage of fuel has also been a challenge within the region and this has led to Sadc countries putting large areas of land under plants which will be processed to produce fuel.
"This has greatly affected agriculture and also food security of the region."
In the region, the Democratic Republic of Congo committed 3 million hectares of land for agro-fuels production, Mozambique 3,5 million hectares, South Africa 700 000 hectares, Tanzania 400 000 hectares and Zambia 500 000 hectares, according to media reports.
Agronomists and environmentalists expressed concern that these huge tracts of land were being mostly used to produce agro-fuels by multinationals for foreign consumption by rich countries in the North.
"These industrial conglomerates see Africa as a 'Green Opec' for the world. The amount of grain required to fill the 90-litre tank of a 4X4 once with ethanol will feed one person for a year," Prof Thompson said.
"Jatropha will take good soils from food crops. Is it right to make land available for agro-fuels production in a food deficit region? There is need to tackle agro-fuels in the context of our land policies."
|
She said Africa should be concerned that Nigeria, Africa's third largest oil producer (and the world's 10th largest) imports 70 percent of oil for domestic consumption.
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
