Environment and Natural Resources Programme • Volume 8 • Number 12 • 27th June 2008

Oxfam: Biofuels Threaten the Poorest

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The diversion of food crops and land use for the production of biofuels accounts for up to 30 percent of the recent rise in food prices, severely impacting the poorest, a recent report from humanitarian group Oxfam International claims.

The 25 June report, entitled “Another inconvenient truth: How biofuel policies are deepening poverty and accelerating climate change,” urges the EU to reconsider its controversial target to make biofuels 10 percent of transport fuel by 2020 (see Bridges Trade BioRes, 18 April 2008, http://www.ictsd.org/biores/08-04-18/story2.htm and 25 January 2008, http://www.ictsd.org/biores/08-01-25/story1.htm). It claims the target has created a supply scramble in the South, exposing the most marginalised communities to land grabbing, exploitation and deteriorating food security. Higher food prices have pushed 105 million more people into poverty and have threatened the livelihoods of almost 300 million, Oxfam says.

Subsidies and tax exemptions for biofuels, as well as import tariffs in the EU and US that prevent the entry of feedstock, make it more profitable for farmers to grow biofuel instead of staple crops, the report finds. The clearing of forests for biofuel crops also has resulted in a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Oxfam estimates that the EU target could increase carbon emissions by 70 times by 2020 because of changing land use in exporting developing countries.

While the EU target is currently spurring a troubling agro-industrial model, the report argues, biofuels hold promise. There are opportunities in biodiesel for poor, rural areas — particularly in smallholder production crops such as oilseeds.

“The EU must ensure that transport emissions reductions do not come at the expense of poor people’s livelihoods,” Oxfam writes. “If not, it must accept that the ten percent target will not be reached sustainably, and therefore should not be reached at all.”

The report, “Another inconvenient truth: How biofuel policies are deepening poverty and accelerating climate change,” is available at: http://www.oxfam.org.au/media/files/AnotherInconvenientTruth.pdf.

ICTSD reporting; “Biofuel use ‘increasing poverty’,” BBC, 25 June 2008; “Biofuels pushing 30 million into poverty,” REUTERS, 25 June 2008.