OneWorld.net (U.S.)

OneWorld.net's take: Small farmers in Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico are being pushed off their land as national and international corporations are increasing the production of biofuel crops to meet rising demand in Europe and the United States.

• Farmers in Vicente Guerrero, Mexico, measuring a slope. © Food First / Institute for Food and Development PolicyCountless environmentalists, food rights, and indigenous and small farmers' rights advocates have spoken out against biofuel production. "The benefits of biofuels cannot be achieved at the expense of food shortages and environmental degradation," says Celso Marcatto, an activist associated with the U.S.-based anti-poverty organization, ActionAid, in Brazil.
  

• This August, environmentalists, industry leaders, and scientists drafted international regulations to ensure that the production of biofuels -- an incredibly controversial "green" energy source -- does not violate labor standards, divert feedstocks from food to fuel, or release more pollution than they would save from vehicles using regular gas, reports the environmental think tank Worldwatch Institute.

• Biofuels are not nearly as environmentally friendly as once thought, and they may be proving a very costly "alternative" fuel that provides little "alternative" benefit. A new study indicates that if the European Union, United States, and Canada continue to promote biofuels as they have done so far, greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector will at best be 0.8 percent lower in 2015 than they would have been without these policies. At the same time the total costs incurred by taxpayers and consumers through subsidies, tax waivers, mandatory blending, and trade barriers will in 2015 amount to $25 billion per year. Rural 21, an international journal of rural development, reports.

Biofuels in the Americas: Driving Farmers off Their Lands

From: ActionAid

Oct. 7, 2008

The drive to expand biofuels production is creating new pressures on land and food rights all over the world. This process is most advanced in Latin America, where national and international companies are increasing the production of sugarcane, palm oil, jatropha and other crops to take advantage of high prices and high expectations for markets in the United States and Europe. In many cases, smallholder farmers are being driven off their lands and fragile ecosystems are threatened.

In Guatemala, the area under cultivation for sugarcane increased more than 155 percent over the last five years. Land used for African palm for biodiesel production tripled in the same period. Guatemala, a small country with high rates of poverty, is becoming one of the world’s leading producers of ethanol for export.

ActionAid Guatemala's Laura Hurtado

Unfortunately, this shift to fuel crops makes life even harder for many local farmers. ActionAid Guatemala has documented how the push for biofuels has increased land concentration (when small-scale farmers are pressured to sell their lands, often because they don’t get the credit or other resources they need to grow crops), and re-concentration, (when plantation owners sell their lands and displace the farm workers who live there). These practices threaten rural livelihoods, food security and local environments.

Similar processes are unfolding in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and many other countries across the Americas. The expansion of biofuel production is driven by efforts to find alternative fuel sources at a time of rising oil prices. US and European renewable fuels standards mandate dramatic increases in the use of ethanol and biodiesel over the next few years. The expectation that the US and EU will increase biofuel imports to meet those targets is driving prices and investment up throughout South America.

Q’eqchi’ women workers at palm nursery

ActionAid met with representatives of family-farm, environmental, development and policy organizations in Guatemala to share experiences and find ways to work together to confront these problems. The groups agree that small-scale production of biofuels crops for local use might have a place in a sustainable mix of crops for food and energy sovereignty. But the current push for large-scale production to meet export demand must be reined in because fuel production is displacing food.

ActionAid believes that the US and EU should reconsider their biofuels targets that are pushing food prices up and farmers off their lands. We will be working with our partners in the Americas, and in similar initiatives in other regions, to call on our governments to reconsider the rush to fuel crops.

See ActionAid Guatemala's slide show on Agrofuel Plantations and Land Loss.

Write to your Member of Congress to insist that they reconsider the impact of biofuels targets and subsidies on food security and rural livelihoods.

To read more about small farmers' struggles and successes in the face of financial crisis and climate change, visit ActionAid.