Biofuels: A Final Nail in the Green Revolution Coffin

In the middle of the last century, with a steadily rising world population and a similar steady shrinking of global food productivity due to over exploited and stressed soils and increasingly polluted water sources, the world was on the verge of perhaps the greatest humanitarian disaster in recorded history. Hundreds of millions of people were at constant risk of starvation and tens of thousands were dying of starvation and nutrition related diseases daily. Then, like the cavalry riding in on galloping steeds, under the command of Doctor Norman Borlaug the Green Revolution came to the rescue and millions were saved from starvation.

Let us be clear. The problem that we are talking about in the biofuels versus food debate did not begin with the construction of the first ethanol plant. It really began and grew with the Green Revolution over the last half of the twentieth century and is being brought to a head by peak oil which is the prime driver behind the frantic rush to biofuels. Prior to the Green Revolution it was becoming abundantly clear that the global human population of about 2.5 billion was too great for the finite carrying capacity of the earth. We could not produce and distribute enough food to feed ourselves. People were dying every day by the tens of thousands of starvation and other nutrition-related diseases. Population experts were warning of mass starvation in Africa and Asia that could claim the lives of hundreds of millions.

In fact the problem actually has its roots in the much earlier Industrial Revolution and the resulting twin, resource-gobbling scourges of overproduction and consumerism. But going back that far requires too long a lens to serve as a useful focal point. The Green Revolution is recent enough in our history, and still very much with us and contributing to the problem, that it is the appropriate place to begin.

Doctor Norman Borlaug, in response to the threat of global famine, proposed what we have come to know as the Green Revolution. The keys to this proposed solution were; a dramatic increase in agricultural irrigation largely facilitated by the exploitation of vast reserves of groundwater in deep aquifers (approximately 97% of the world's liquid freshwater is contained in these underground aquifers) using powerful mechanical pumps; the efficient, mechanized cultivation of vast tracts of hybrid (subsequently GMO) high-yield crops of feed grains like corn, wheat, soy, millet, rice and others; the development of an efficient global food distribution system to get the food from where it could be grown to where it was needed; vastly increased yields and crop security, especially on increasingly exploited marginal lands, through the use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides; the establishment of a global emergency food grain reserve to serve as a buffer against crop losses in vulnerable third world nations (that reserve has shrunk from a marginal 120 day supply to a critical 57 day supply over the past several years[37], [78]); and the development of emergency food aid NGOs to get food to those poor and malnourished most in need of it in Africa, Asia and elsewhere.

All in all, the Green Revolution seemed to most like a good and humanitarian thing to do at the time. Few other programs, after all, could claim to be responsible for saving hundreds of millions of lives. The end result, however, was far more than the millions of lives saved. The Green Revolution resulted in the fastest doubling of the human population in history, from 2.5 to five billion in less than forty years, from 2.5 to 6.5 billion in just over fifty years. Considering that the Green Revolution came about because the carrying capacity of earth could not support our then population of 2.5 billion, doubling and, now, nearly tripling those numbers could hardly be considered a success. That entire surplus of four billion people since added to the global population is living on an artificial carrying capacity that is totally dependent on finite and now rapidly diminishing fossil fuels. Whether we are already at or about to reach peak oil the situation can only worsen as our artificial carrying capacity gradually disappears.

Concurrent with the unfolding of the Green Revolution there grew a new psychology of plenty and, subsequently, affluence. We forgot that finite systems have limits and came to believe that anything was possible and that we could continue to grow forever. The previously unimaginable levels of exploitation of energy to support this growth also seemed to have no limits, a belief fostered by governments, industry and the mainstream media for the past several decades.

But all of that is changing. Despite the impressive accomplishments of the Green Revolution, despite a half century of unimaginable global economic growth, despite wondrous new technological advances, despite the first real globalization of human society, the limits that gave rise to the Green Revolution are still there, waiting like the overly-patient creditor for the loan on which we have been living for the past half century to be repaid, with interest. Like the debt-laden, third world country that pays the interest on its outstanding loans by taking on new loans, the longer we continue to live above our means, the longer we continue to survive on this artificial carrying capacity we have created through the massive over-exploitation of great reserves of energy, the greater and more devastating will be the collapse when it can no longer be avoided. We are living in a fool's paradise.

Over the past couple months I must have read over three hundred articles, columns, papers and reports from all over the world on the link between biofuels and increasing global hunger and poverty. It makes this writing of yet another article on the subject seem like kicking a dead horse. But as long as we continue our infatuation with biofuels the problem is going to continue to worsen and efforts, big and small, are still going to be needed to put the brakes on this insidious and ultimately dangerous new energy fairy.

Much of the debate over whether the production of biofuels is contributing to world poverty and hunger is an apples and oranges affair. Proponents of biofuels claim that the production of biofuel crops in third world countries can actually improve conditions in those countries by giving them another lucrative cash crop ([1], [12], [24], [59]), I guess to go along with the bananas, coffee, tea, cotton and millet that they now produce for export. But for every piece extolling the virtues of biofuels there are a hundred articles warning how they will contribute to the already existing crisis of global hunger (for example; Biofuels and world hunger[10], Will Agro fuels Usher Famine? [16], The Globalization of Hunger[21], Starving for Fuel: How Ethanol Production Contributes to Global Hunger[35] and many, many more). The benefits of the production and export of exportable cash crops, though it may increase the foreign cash influx for a third world country, do not accrue to the people most in need, those grappling with starvation and poverty. It benefits the large-scale, fat-cat industrial farmers who may, or may not, employ some of those living in poverty at a wage that is guaranteed to keep them there, and keep them barely alive nutritionally (see, for example, Neither biofuels nor biotechnology will benefit African smallholder farmers[39], Small farmers speak out against globalisation[57]).

The impact of biofuels on global food prices and global emergency food aid is not on those large farmers who grow and export biofuel crops. The impact is on the poor and starving, urban and rural. The impact is on those small farmers who have been priced off their own small piece of land because of the globalization of food prices and the fact that their small-scale production has to compete in a global market against the output from a highly-mechanized 50,000 acre farm in the U.S. heartland. The impact is on the small farmer who is forced into growing a crop he cannot afford to buy, and can't eat, in order to try to buy food at a market, food that has increased in price by 25-50% over this past year alone[26]. The impact is on the hundreds of thousands of destitute and starving refugees crowded into barely survivable refugee camps, people who have lost everything and have little prospect of ever having anything again. The impact is on the dozens of emergency food aid NGOs that are having to plead to increasingly reluctant western governments ([59], [71], [76]) for much more funding because of the skyrocketing prices of the food grains they rely on to feed starving millions in Africa and Asia ([14], [48], [52], [60], [65], [68], [71], [74]).

The biofuels debate is badly confused because of the many different, and highly variable, biofuels that are lumped under that single banner. The basic grouping of bio-diesel and ethanol/methanol is not even sufficient to lend clarity. The cost and impact of ethanol on the environment and on global hunger depends very much on what type of ethanol/methanol (distilled ethanol, celulosic ethanol, etc) and on the specific feedstock you are discussing (sugar cane, sugar beet, corn, wheat, palm oil, jatropha, cassava, rice, switchgrass, algae, etc.).

I am not a chemist so please forgive me if I oversimplify. Producing ethanol is essentially a task of turning plant sugars into alcohol through a process of esterization and fermentation. Regardless of the feedstock, this final stage is relatively similar in process, technology and cost. Where the tremendous variability occurs in both process and cost is in converting the feedstock into the required sugars, in getting the feedstock to release its sugars. This generally has to be accomplished with the aid of different enzymes that convert the carbohydrates in the organic material into sugars. But not all enzymes are created the same and different feedstocks need different enzymes. Some enzymes are very efficient, others not. The carbohydrates that the enzymes convert into sugars may be very different in molecular structure, and vary considerably in concentration within the organic matter.

The environmental impact and the contribution to soil destruction and, most importantly, to world hunger is very much dependent on that feedstock. To lump together the ethanol produced relatively efficiently from sugar cane in Brazil and the heavily-subsidized corn ethanol produced in a plant in Kansas is to completely cloud the argument. They are as different as night and day. Take away the ludicrous subsidies enjoyed by America's corn ethanol producers and you have an industry operating in the red. The EROEI on corn ethanol is negative, that of sugar cane ethanol slightly above one. In fact the majority of ethanol processes could not survive without government subsidies. Yet any suggestion that those subsidies should be removed meets with a flurry of objections ([6], [8], [9], [20], [22], [49], [51], [59]). You can't just offer the subsidies then take them away. Companies are going to suffer. Many of those companies could fail.

Well that's an argument I would very, very much like to turn around. The green revolution promised the people of the world, especially the impoverished and hungry of the third world, that food would no longer be a problem, that they could be confident of being able to put food in front of their children today and tomorrow, led them to believe that food was an inalienable right and that the world would take care of it's poor and hungry. They could bring children into the world without the risk of having to watch their bellies bloat up from hunger and have them die in their arms because there was no food. To the poor and starving that promise of food, even the most basic of food, was as important as the guarantee of lifetime employment to a factory employee in the industrial heartland. The food aid distributed by the food aid organizations to the most hungry and destitute among us was the equivalent of the corn ethanol subsidy that many governments are reconsidering. Through the surpluses produced starting with the Green Revolution we assumed the role of subsidizing global overpopulation. The end result, like corn ethanol plants sprouting up in Kansas, was that the population continued to climb. Everyday the world had to subsidize more and more excess population.

To take away that subsidy, to now begin diverting that food on which the world's poor are so dependent for their very lives away into the production of ethanol and other biofuels, to now begin to cut back on the national contributions to the emergency food aid agencies that distribute that food, to now start pressuring those poor third world countries into using their increasingly impoverished agricultural land to produce crops to produce ethanol, is going to spread unimaginable additional suffering among the world's poor and hungry. They are going to be paying the real price for our ethanol mania. Removing the corn subsidies from ethanol producers may cause many companies to fail. What we are doing in our pursuit of biofuels will cause untold additional deaths.

I must apologize for the long list of articles and other references below. This is, however, just a small sampling of the massive amount of material available. I urge you to read at least some of them.

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1) Biofuels Will Help Fight Hunger
http://biodiesel.carimson.com/2007/11/biofuels-will-help-fight-hunger.html
2) Biofuel industry says oil hike driving food prices
http://www.palmoilprices.net/news/biofuel-industry-says-oil-hike-driving-food-prices/
3) A balanced contribution
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_foley/2007/11/a_balanced_contribution.html
4) AGRICULTURE: Costly Prosperity
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40000
5) GSPI States: Some Biofuels Add Significant Food to Your Table
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20071109005204&newsLang=en
6) Screwing the poor to secure votes
http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/11/screwing-poor-to-secure-votes.html
7) Biofuels: Is corn ethanol the way to go?
http://runyogi.gaia.com/blog/2007/11/biofuels_is_corn_ethanol_the_way_to_go
8) Repeal "Biofuels" Requirements
http://dad29.blogspot.com/2007/11/repeal-biofuels-requirements.html
9) Hell hath no fury like a special interest questioned
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/hancock/blog/2007/11/hell_hath_no_fury_like_a_speci.html
10) Biofuels and world hunger
http://www.workers.org/2007/world/biofuels-1018/
11) Corn prices raise the specter of hunger
http://www.latinamericapress.org/article.asp?lanCode=1&artCode=5401
12) Ethanol leaders urge U.N. to review biofuel report
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN1247224320071112
13) A clean, green machine?
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_foley/2007/11/a_clean_green_machine.html
14) Biofuels eating into food security--Golez
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20071216-107111/Biofuels_eating_into_food_security--Golez
15) Are commodities a bubble ready to burst?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/money/2007/12/16/ccmines216.xml
16) Will Agro fuels Usher Famine?
http://blackstarnews.com/?c=122&a=3990
17) Zimbabwe: Myths of Agro-Fuels Boom
http://allafrica.com/stories/200712170216.html
18) The Buzz on Biofuels: Worse Than Dickensian
http://chinaconfidential.blogspot.com/2007/12/buzz-on-biofuels-dickensian-solution_19.html
19) Saving and Restoring Forests Saves Far More Carbon Emissions than Biofuels
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/12/370099.shtml
20) What Is The Real Cost Of Corn Ethanol?
http://culturaleconomics.blogspot.com/2007/12/what-is-real-cost-of-corn-ethanol.html
21) The Globalization of Hunger
http://www.madre.org/articles/inter/globalizationhunger.html
22) Subsidizing Hunger On Borrowed Cash
http://www.globalpolitician.com/23911-economics
23) NCSU researchers re-engineer sweet potato for efficient ethanol production
http://biopact.com/2007/12/ncsu-researchers-re-engineer-sweet.html
24) Biofuels "Will Not Lead to Hunger"
http://coolexcooling.com/2007/12/23/biofuels-will-not-lead-to-hunger/
25) Zimbabwe: Biofuels - Promote Research On Non Food Crops
http://allafrica.com/stories/200712240568.html
26) Global food prices rise 40% in 2007 to new record
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1227-fao.html
27) Biofuels, the Biggest Scam Going
http://www.counterpunch.org/goodman12282007.html
28) The Last Word (for 2007) on Biofuels and Hunger
http://chinaconfidential.blogspot.com/2007/12/vandana-shiva-gets-years-last-word-on.html
29) False Solution to Climate Change
http://liberianature.blogspot.com/2008/01/false-solution-to-climate-change.html
30) How Global warming is creating global hunger
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2008/01/how-global-warm.html
31) Eating MEAT and using BIOFUELS becomes an international disaster
http://iaoeoai.blogspot.com/2008/01/eating-meat-and-using-biofuels-becomes.html
32) Three Billion Dead: The Future of Biofuels and the Future of Resistance
http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com/2008/01/three-billion-dead-future-of-biofuels.html
33) It's time to wake up to the danger of this infatuation with biofuels
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/brendan-keenan/its-time-to-wake-up-to-the-danger-of-this-infatuation-with-biofuels-1261870.html
34) Defra scientist: second generation biofuels need investment
http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=14033&channel=0
35) Starving for Fuel: How Ethanol Production Contributes to Global Hunger
http://www.theglobalist.com/DBweb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=5518
36) Africa: Controversial Proposals Expected At WEF Gathering
http://allafrica.com/stories/200801190055.html
37) The world has only 11 weeks of consumable corn reserves - the lowest level ever
http://12degreesoffreedom.blogspot.com/2008/01/world-has-only-11-weeks-of-consumable.html
38) World Economic Forum to look at Africa's Green Revolution and energy
http://biopact.com/2008/01/world-economic-forum-to-look-at-africas.html
39) Neither biofuels nor biotechnology will benefit African smallholder farmers
http://africanagriculture.blogspot.com/2008/01/neither-biofuels-nor-biotechnology-will.html
40) Ethanol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol
41) Ethanol The Road to a Greener Future
http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/infosource/pub/vehiclefuels/ethanol/M92_257_2003.cfm
42) Methanol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol
43) Biodiesel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel
44) Jatropha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatropha
45) Biofuels could generate extensive food shortages
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/296855
46) CLIMATE CHANGE: EU Persists With Biofuels
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40890
47) INSIGHTS: Why Ethanol Production Will Drive World Food Prices Even Higher in 2008
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2008/2008-01-25-insbro.asp
48) Food supplies too scarce to meet relief needs
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df52ae50-cbb1-11dc-97ff-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
49) DEVELOPMENT: Biofuels a Lose-Lose Strategy, Critics Say
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40929
50) The Choice Between Food And Fuel
http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=15055
51) Groups call for moratorium on government biofuels incentives
http://www.brownfieldnetwork.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=C7EF413E-BA4E-4A46-4486791A7CAF9782
52) UN aid chief worried by food inflation, weather
http://uk.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUKL29349230._CH_.242020080129
53) Impoverished Areas Of Africa And Asia Face Severe Crop Losses From Climate Change In 20 Years
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080131152010.htm
54) Nine Billion Little Feet on the Highway of the Damned
http://www.counterpunch.org/bageant02062008.html
55) Studies conclude that biofuels are not so green
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/07/healthscience/biofuel.php
56) Genetically modified (GM) crops ‘failing to keep promises’
http://fooddemocracy.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/genetically-modified-gm-crops-failing-to-keep-promises/
57) Small farmers speak out against globalisation
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=&fArticleId=4254663
58) The ravages of ethanol
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/guests/s_552462.html
59) CLIMATE CHANGE: Lula Calls for Flexibility from Rich Countries
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41302
60) African NGOs call for moratorium on biofuels
http://www.afrol.com/articles/28075
61) Canadians Bemoan the Lack of Availability of Biofuels
http://domesticfuel.com/2008/02/24/canadians-bemoan-the-lack-of-availability-for-biofuels/
62) The Future is Famine
http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2008/02/future-is-famine.html
http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2008/02/future-is-famine-part-2.html
63) A recipe for inflation
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/a-recipe-for-inflation-787936.html
64) The Great Agrofuel Swindle
http://www.gnn.tv/articles/3571/The_Great_Agrofuel_Swindle
65) World Food Program issues 'emergency appeal' for funds
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-food25mar25,1,6674660.story
66) "We knew we were poor before, but now it's worse than poverty."
http://12degreesoffreedom.blogspot.com/2008/03/we-knew-we-were-poor-before-but-now-its.html
67) Hot air on biofuel
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Hot-air-on-biofuel/287849/
68) Food Agencies Are Starting to ask for Extra
http://batucuda.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/food-agencies-are-starting-to-ask-for-extra/
69) EU's biofuels target could be amended amid concerns
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j1UHdxrunQY6gK9ddDZzHUi4zrRA
70) Biofuel: The fake solution to climate change
http://carboncapstaskforce.blogspot.com/2008/03/biofuel-fake-solution-to-climate-change.html
71) Soaring Food Prices Putting U.S. Emergency Aid in Peril
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022904029.html
72) Ethanol Is Not The Answer
http://robertd.wordpress.com/2008/02/29/ethanol-is-not-the-answer/
73) NYT Hits Small Mark, Misses Big One
http://www.animalperson.net/animal_person/2008/03/nyt-hits-small.html
74) Higher grain prices putting squeeze on world food aid
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-wed-world-food-programmar05,0,2800064.story
75) 2008: The year of global food crisis
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2104849.0.2008_the_year_of_global_food_crisis.php
76) Economies face the prospect of mass migration, fear, famine and disorder
http://www.financialnews-us.com/?page=uscomment&contentid=2450009523
77) World Bank to Increase Africa Agriculture Loans
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,date:2008-03-11~menuPK:34461~pagePK:34392~piPK:64256810~theSitePK:4607,00.html
78) Hunger is set to grow as global food stocks fall
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Hunger_is_set_to_grow_as_global_food_stocks_fall/articleshow/2859771.cms
79) World Bank Loan To Complement Agricultural Reform In Kazakhstan
http://commercecan.ic.gc.ca/scdt/bizmap/interface2.nsf/vDownload/IMI_2414/$file/X_554592.DOC
80) China: Third Irrigated Agriculture Intensification Loan Project
http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/EAP/eaprural.nsf/PrintFriendly/43A7075F389926A485256F970068FDE9?Opendocument
81) Results For "agriculture development"
http://extsearch.worldbank.org/servlet/SiteSearchServlet?q=agriculture%20development
82) World Bank Support of Agricultural Development Projects in Romania
http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/oed/oeddoclib.nsf/DocUNIDViewForJavaSearch/18C44C3F0235EA25852567F5005D89BF
83) Agriculture & The World Bank
http://www.whirledbank.org/environment/agriculture.html

Biofuels: Recipe for Artificially-Induced Overshoot of Earth's Carrying Capacity

There has been much discussion among peak-oilers, most notably on the various Peak Oil Yahoo groups like Energy Resources, Running on Empty 2 and Energy Roundtable, and on sites such as ASPO, Energy Bulletin, Life After the Oil Crash and Wolf At The Door about the link between Peak Oil, global agriculture and the overshoot of earth's fossil-fuel-facilitated, artificial carrying capacity as we pass peak oil and start on the downslope of terminal decline. Much of this discussion is under the controversial and uncomfortable title of Die-Off, an extreme title that causes many observers and pundits to actively avoid consideration and discussion of carrying capacity when talking about post-peak societal changes and impacts. But it is time to push the discussion of peak oil and the carrying capacity relationship to the forefront.

Of late a new wild card has been inserted into the discussion, bio-fuels. There is lately so much mania and hype about bio-fuels. Every morning my e-mail in-basket contains at least one fully-packed Google Alert on "world hunger and bio-fuels". So many governments see them as the answer to both oil depletion and global warming. Much of this seems to be a means of avoiding upsetting or confronting the wealthy and strong (their own voters) in the increasingly traditional way by pushing the problem on the poor and weak of the under-developed world. The bi-product is that far too many people in responsible positions are failing to grasp the obvious.

The glaringly obvious point is, we can't feed the world's population today even with the artificial carrying capacity afforded by fossil fuels. The more energetically we pursue bio-fuels and take food-producing land out of the world food pool and shift it over to the world energy pool the more we reduce that artificial carrying capacity. As a result, the closer we move to the world's natural carrying capacity and the fewer people we can feed. In these early months of 2008 the world loses up to 40,000 people per day to starvation and other nutrition-related diseases. It is estimated that the amount of bio-fuel required to fill the tank of one SUV is enough to feed one person for one full year. How many more lives will it cost for every 1000 bio-fuel fill-ups? For every million gallons of bio-fuel production?

Over the past several years an ever-increasing proportion of new vehicle sales has been in the light truck category which is dominated by SUVs and vans, not to mention the loathsome Hummer. I am not a fan of SUVs and vans as personal vehicles and regularly flip the bird to Hummers as they rumble past like Bradley armored personnel carriers. These vehicles are not subject to the same fuel efficiency standards imposed on regular automobiles. They also require the consumption of far greater energy in their production. They are throw-backs to the big gas-guzzling eight-cylinder monster cars (the old behemoths with the massive tail-fins) of the fifties and sixties that, in my humble opinion, appeal to those that rely on their vehicle as a status symbol and a manifestation and extension of their assumed strength and prowess.

The almost global mania for bio-fuels pushes the envelope of carrying capacity in two ways. It takes land that should be producing food and diverts it to the production of crops to produce those bio-fuels, thereby reducing the amount of food that can be produced and badly reducing the amount of organic matter being returned to increasingly deficient soil. Billions of tons of top-soil deprived of organic matter are disappearing every year. The global emergency food grain reserves have now shrunk to the lowest level since those reserves were established as a buffer against poor harvests and crop loss. They are now less than a sixty days supply, far too low to accommodate any broad crop failures or losses in the primary northern hemisphere food grain producing nations. The food inventories of the worlds Aid agencies are shrinking while contributions and government support are inadequate to keep up with rising prices in these critical food grains. This is a particularly worrisome reality as the incidence of extreme weather events increases due to global warming and climate change.

But the push for bio-fuels also increases the cost of food in general pushing additional millions of people each year out of the breadline because they simply cannot afford the increasing cost of food. Even when the price of food was low, 850 million people went hungry every day because they could not afford to buy it. In other words, even the food that is being produced is not available for economic reasons, to either the poor and hungry needing the food the most or to the food aid agencies who supply emergency food support to the world's malnourished as a last resort.

The world's major developed nations, particularly those in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) have announced targets of satisfying from five to as much as fifteen percent of their liquid fuel needs through bio-fuels over this next one to two decades. This could represent global bio-fuel production of up to five hundred million gallons of bio-fuels per day just to satisfy today's consumption, not to mention the 4-5% increase in demand each year. This would divert food grains and other food crops like Casava and Palm Oil to the production of bio-fuels every day sufficient to feed as many as twenty to twenty-five million people for a year. If these targets are ever met or even approached, and I do not believe it is possible, the long-held economists' dream of a world full of people living an American standard of life will be met because everyone lower on the economic food chain will have died of starvation. As George Monbiot suggests in his Guardian article, The western appetite for bio-fuels is causing starvation in the poor world, it would be better and more humane to just refine those millions of people directly into fuel for our vehicles than let them starve to death by converting their food into fuel.

The decline of the artificial global carrying on the downslope is the most important issue in the peak oil debate. It is the truth that cannot be spoken. The harder we work to avoid discussing it coupled with this manic global push for bio-fuels the faster we push ourselves into an artificially-induced overshoot and die-off. It is time to stop avoiding this discussion of the uncomfortable and throw the idiocy of bio-fuels into sharp perspective. At the heart of the issue is the question that must be asked and answered. How many lives is our happy motoring worth? That little sticker on the fuel pump at the local gas station that shows the breakdown of each dollar spent on gasoline should be upgraded to show the cost in human lives.

The Human Cost of Bio-Fuels

What is so terrible about bio-fuels? Why should I be opposed to them? Bio-fuel advocates, after all, tell us they are a green solution to the global warming crisis brought on by our profligate use of fossil fuels by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. Honest research using full energy accounting has proven that to be blatantly untrue. An article entitled The Hidden Agenda behind the Bush Administration's Bio-Fuel Plan by F. William Engdahl says, in fact, "This year the Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a report concluding that using corn-based ethanol instead of gasoline will have no impact on greenhouse gas emissions, and would even expand fossil fuel use due to increased demand for fertilizer and irrigation to expand acreage of ethanol crops."[15] And in an article titled Biofuels: The Five Myths of the Agro-fuels Transition, Eric Holt-Giménez, a Traveling Professor with the International Honors Program (IHP) at Boston University, writes, "Every ton of palm oil produced results in 33 tons of carbon dioxide emissions—10 times more than petroleum. Tropical forests cleared for sugar cane ethanol emit 50 percent more greenhouse gasses than the production and use of the same amount of gasoline." And in response to the constant assurances that bio-fuels will not take land suitable for food production out of service, and that bio-fuels will not cause harm to the environment, Holt-Giménez adds, "Proponents of agro-fuels argue that fuel crops planted on ecologically degraded lands will improve rather than destroy the environment. Perhaps the government of Brazil had this in mind when it re-classified some 200 million hectares of dry-tropical forests, grassland, and marshes as “degraded” and apt for cultivation."[16]

On the simplest level, in our overpopulated world, the generation of bio/agro-fuels is turning the food needed by the poor of the third world into fuel for the cars and SUVs and Hummers of the industrialized world's wealthy. Even if it is being produced from crops not consumed by humans, "It is a crime against humanity to convert agricultural productive soil into soil which produces food stuff that will be turned into biofuel," says Jean Ziegler, the U.N. special rapporteur on the "Right to Food". Ziegler argues, "[UN] member states should ensure that biofuels are produced from non-food plants, agricultural wastes and crop residues."[2] But in a method of organic, sustainable agriculture, which the world will soon have to revert to as the fossil fuels used to produce pesticides and fertilizers go into serious decline, is there really such a thing as "agricultural waste and crop residues?" They are part of the post-carbon fertilizer on which farming will rely. But Eric Holt-Giménez makes the point in Biofuels: The Five Myths of the Agro-fuels Transition that "The issue of which crops are converted to fuel is irrelevant. Wild plants cultivated as fuel crops won’t have a smaller “environmental footprint” because commercialization will transform their ecology. They will rapidly migrate from hedgerows and woodlots onto arable lands to be intensively cultivated like any other industrial crop—with all the associated environmental externalities."[16]

The amount of food grain it takes (I.E. 450 pounds of corn for ethanol) to produce the fuel for just one bio-fuel fill-up of that 25-gallon SUV tank is enough to feed one person for a year[1]. Even in these early days of the bio-fuel transition, over the past several years the global emergency food grain reserves have shrunk from a marginal 120-day supply to a critical 57-day buffer. It is estimated that, with the diversion of food grains to bio-fuels, even without a significant Northern Hemisphere grain crop failure (an increasing potential due to global warming), those reserves will have completely disappeared by the end of this decade.

For the first time in modern, hydrocarbon history we are able to measure precisely how many lives it costs to fill the tank of the SUV week after week after week. The deaths in the oil wars in the middle east and Africa and from the environmental destruction wrought by the oil companies in third-world countries cannot be quantifiably linked to an individual's personal fuel usage. Bio-fuels, like crude oil, arrive at our shores and gas stations at a tremendous cost in blood and human lives. Unlike with oil, that cost can be quantified. With a weekly bio-fuel fill-up, each year of driving just one SUV (requiring 11.7 tons of corn) would cost the lives of fifty-two people in the third world from starvation, assuming it takes a full year of starvation to kill. I'm certain modern science could nail that down precisely as well.

President Bush has called on his country to produce 35 billion gallons of renewable fuel a year by 2017.[1] That would require, each year, the food grain sufficient to feed 1.4 billion people (every gallon requires 18 pounds of corn). And that would only satisfy 10% of America's liquid fuel needs. Even in 2005, global ethanol production was 9.66 billion gallons (enough to feed 386,400 people), of which Brazil produced 45.2 percent (from sugar cane) and the United States 44.5 percent (approximately 4.3 billion gallons) (from corn). But six billion gallons of ethanol are needed every year in the U.S. just to replace the fuel additive known as MTBE (which itself is made from the food grains rapeseed (canola) and sunflower seeds), which is being phased out due to its polluting effects on ground water aquifers.[1]

For those naysayers who have been sitting back demanding evidence, it is difficult to imagine what more evidence they should need. We can quantify the cost in human lives of our efforts to keep the oil-depletion wolf from the door by substituting bio-fuels to get a few extra years of happy motoring. On the back of the sales receipt printed out at the gas station there should be required to be a picture of the emaciated person who has just died in order to pay for that fill-up, like the graphic health-warning pictures now printed on cigarette packs. Sooner or later we must personally face the consequences of the lifestyle choices we make, especially when those consequences can be so clearly measured in the loss of human lives.

Even now while there is still some meagre emergency food grain reserve left, the poor in the third world are, according to UN FAO and WHO statistics, dying at the rate of up to 40,000 each day from starvation, malnourishment and other nutrition related diseases. With the mad rush to bio-fuels the poor are getting priced out of the market for the very food they need to survive. "Hunger," said Amartya Sen, Harvard Economics professor, "results not from scarcity, but poverty."[16] But poverty is relative. It is written in the wealth and income disparity between the industrialized world and the third world. And it is a disparity that grows at a rampant pace with the wholesale wealth and resource transfer from the already deeply impoverished third world to the increasingly rich nations of the industrialized world. The World Bank has estimated that in 2001, 2.7 billion people in the world were living on the equivalent of less than $2 a day.[1] That number has now risen to over 3 billion. Those studies also suggest that caloric consumption among the world's poor declines by about half of one percent whenever the average prices of all major food staples increase by one percent. Those poor are already struggling to survive at a nutrition level at or below the minimums established by the WHO.

Much of the current acceleration in that disparity, and the increasing third world hunger that results from it, is a direct bi-product of the ill-advised and misleadingly-promoted bio-fuel revolution in the industrialized world. Several studies by economists at the World Bank and elsewhere suggest that the number of food-insecure people in the world rises by over 16 million for every percentage increase in the real prices of staple foods. That means, they suggest, that 1.2 billion people could be chronically hungry by 2025.[1] But those numbers are extremely conservative.

Agro/bio-fuels have become profitable because of rising oil prices and massive government subsidies and a lot of distorted pricing for different forms of energy. It is estimated that, even with the subsidies, bio-fuels could not be competitive at oil prices below $30.00/bbl. But, says the article How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor by C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer, "If oil prices remain high -- which is likely -- the people most vulnerable to the price hikes brought on by the biofuel boom will be those in countries that both suffer food deficits and import petroleum. The risk extends to a large part of the developing world: in 2005, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, most of the 82 low-income countries with food deficits were also net oil importers. ..... In late 2006, the price of tortilla flour in Mexico, which gets 80 percent of its corn imports from the United States, doubled thanks partly to a rise in U.S. corn prices from $2.80 to $4.20 a bushel."[1] Much of the impact on the poorest countries will be more than just price but also the availability of food aid. As Thalif Deen points out in his article Food to Biofuels a "Recipe for Disaster", "Since Washington donates the majority of its food aid in-kind (direct transfers of food commodities), increased biofuel production on American farmland will invariably affect levels of U.S. food aid contributions," Mittal added. Already, the amount of corn contributed as food aid has been steadily sinking and as more farmland is devoted to biofuels, U.S. food aid contributions are predicted to drop further, she warned."[2]

World grain prices (grain is the most basic of those basic foods) rose 100% over this past 12 months alone.[15] Looking very conservatively at a broader basket of grains and seeds, and minimizing the impact of bio-fuels, global corn prices will increase by a further 20 percent by 2010 and 41 percent by 2020. The prices of oilseeds, including soybeans, rapeseeds (canola), and sunflower seeds, are projected to rise by 26 percent by 2010 and 76 percent by 2020, and wheat prices by 11 percent by 2010 and 30 percent by 2020. In the poorest parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where cassava (also known as manioc) is, most importantly, a staple of last resort for 200-million of the poorest of the poor, if it is used to produce bio-fuels (it is "of interest" because it has a high sugar/starch content) its price is expected to increase by 33 percent by 2010 and 135 percent by 2020.[1] The International Food Policy Research Institute has estimated that the price of basic food staples will increase in real terms by 20-33 percent by the year 2010 and 26-135 percent by the year 2020. That will have a tremendous impact on the caloric intake of the poorest in the third world. They estimate that even now 824 million people continue to go hungry.[16] If basic food prices increase by 135% by 2020 that would place 2-3 billion additional people in the food-insecure category, most of the underdeveloped and developing world. At the same time it will have a significant ramp-up effect on that statistic of 40,000 nutrition related deaths per day.

There were 110 ethanol refineries in operation in the United States at the end of 2006, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. Many were being expanded, and another 73 were under construction.[1] But America is not alone in the frantic pursuit of bio-fuels. It seems to be being seized on by every government and trading block in the world. In 2005, the European Union produced 890 million gallons of biodiesel, over 80 percent of the world's total. The EU's Common Agricultural Policy also promotes the production of ethanol from a combination of sugar beets and wheat. Brazil has mandated that all diesel contain two percent biodiesel by 2008 and five percent biodiesel by 2013.[1] This all appears to be wrapped up in a recognition of (but not an admission to) peak oil and soon-to-be declining global oil reserves. And, of course, those developing countries (can you spell "China" or "India"?) are to blame. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's latest laughable projections, global energy consumption will rise by 71 percent between 2003 and 2030, with demand from developing countries, notably China and India, surpassing that from members of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) by 2015.[1]

Bio-fuels are rapidly turning into the latest golden goose for wealthy agro-business firms, like Cargill and ADM (nearly half of ADM's profits have come from products that the U.S. government has either subsidized or protected), and energy companies alike. In 2006, ADM was the largest producer of ethanol in the United States: producing more than 1.07 billion gallons. Despite huge profits for those involved in bio-fuel production, the U.S. government continues to heavily subsidize both corn farmers and ethanol producers. Direct corn subsidies equaled $8.9 billion in 2005. And the federal government already grants ethanol blenders a tax allowance of 51 cents per gallon of ethanol they make, and many states pay out additional subsidies. In addition, most ethanol currently imported into the United States carries a 54-cents-per-gallon tariff, partly because cheaper ethanol from countries such as Brazil threatens "poor" U.S. producers like ADM. It, of course, has nothing to do with the fact that sugar-cane ethanol has a marginal positive EROEI while corn-based ethanol has a negative EROEI. Cellulosic ethanol would have an even better EROEI except for the high transportation costs involved if the wood products came from wild stands of trees and not wood plantations. Despite already high government subsidies, Congress is considering lavishing more money on primarily corn-based biofuels. Legislation related to the 2007 farm bill introduced by Representative Ron Kind (D-Wis.) calls for raising loan guarantees for ethanol producers from $200 million to $2 billion.

Insidiously, not content with turning food needed by the third world into SUV fuel, the governments of the industrialized nations and their agro-business partners want the third world to use their scarce food-producing land to produce the bio-fuel crops to be used to make bio-fuels. In his article, Biofuels: The Five Myths of the Agro-fuels Transition, Eric Holt-Giménez says "OECD countries are looking to the Global South to meet their fuel demands. Southern governments appear eager to oblige. ..... In Brazil—where fuel crop acreage already occupies a land area the size of Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Great Britain combined—the government is planning a five-fold increase in sugar cane acreage. Their goal is to replace 10 percent of the world’s gasoline by 2025."[16] The bio/agro-fuels marketing pitch to the third world goes something like "If peasant farmers in developing countries could become suppliers for the emerging [bio-fuel] industry, they would benefit from the increased income."[1] But the history of industrial demand for agricultural crops in these countries suggests that large producers tied to global agro-businesses like ADM and Cargill will be the main beneficiaries. Holt-Giménez goes on to add, "Behind the scenes—and under the noses of most national anti-trust laws—giant oil, grain, auto and genetic engineering corporations are forming powerful partnerships: ADM and Monsanto, Chevron and Volkswagen; BP, DuPont, and Toyota."[16] Two of the primary crops used for bio-fuel production, soybeans and especially corn, are row crops that contribute heavily to soil erosion and water pollution and require large amounts of fertilizer, pesticides, and fuel to grow, harvest, and dry. Those "peasant farmers" simply don't have the financial resources to get involved in these crops. Of course the agro-business giants, or those newly formed partnerships above, would be more than happy to assist them, for a modest price.

If the assistance came not from the business world but in government to government financial support, targeted for agricultural development, coupled with balanced trade policies, there may be a benefit to the poor, small-scale indigenous farmers. But, at present in the area of biofuels, the problem is both restrictive tariffs and heavy subsidies in rich countries, which drive up food prices and limit export opportunities for efficient developing country producers. Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa, studies show, employs 65 percent of the labor force and generates 32 percent of GDP growth. According to the report, however, the share of official development assistance going to agriculture in developing countries is a mere 4 percent, far short of the 11-14 percent share of national budgets invested in agriculture that fueled the Asian green revolutions. According to the WDR, for the poorest people, GDP growth originating in agriculture is about four times more effective in reducing poverty than GDP growth originating outside the sector.[3]

The complicity of the U.S. federal government and the large multinational agro-business companies in pushing the ethanol/bio/agro-fuel agenda is blatantly obvious. The motive, of course, is simple. Having little luck and bearing tremendous cost in trying to control that portion of "America's oil" that is under the ground in other countries, the federal government is again singing the "energy independence" song, only this time on the back of bio-fuels. But it is doing so, in partnership with agro-business, using a carefully orchestrated campaign of biased studies, disinformation, misinformation. misinterpretation, misrepresentation and outright lies.

From the report Salazar: "Everyone Benefits From A Strong, Smart Farm Bill" we see a classic case of disinformation and misdirection. "The Farm Bill takes the next step, helping farmers and ranchers take advantage of renewable energy technologies that have been developed at places like the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado. With the $1.3 billion that this bill devotes to energy programs, farmers will be able to apply for grants to develop bio-refineries and to improve the handling, harvest, transport and storage of feedstocks for biofuels. The bill includes tax credits for small-wind turbines and cellulosic biofuel production. And it stimulates research into the methods and technologies that will allow the most productive lands in the world [so much for not having an impact on land that could produce food] to provide more and more of our energy. Our farmers and ranchers want to be a part of the solution – helping reduce the amount of oil we import while helping stimulate a clean energy economy built on innovation, technology, and our productive advantages. The energy title is a win-win for our rural communities, for consumers who want cleaner, lower- cost energy, and for our national security.” [Funny how the first item mentioned in the tax credits is wind turbines and the whole rest of the bit is about bio-fuels. The wind turbines are smoke and mirrors.] Today, we are faced with a new challenge – that of building a clean energy economy for the 21st century – and we need the help of our farmers and ranchers. Our national security, our economic security, and our environmental security demand that we grow our way toward energy independence. [My emphasis] The country that successfully replaces its imports of foreign oil with clean, home-grown energy will reap competitive and technological advantages that will keep it out front in the world for decades to come. We can all play a part in this new economy, but the productivity and ingenuity of Rural America is our greatest untapped resource in our quest to reduce our dependence on foreign oil."[4]

In her article, Ethanol Campaign Takes On Detractors, Lauren Etter writes, "With the ethanol industry facing growing criticism, a new industry group plans a splashy ad campaign next week that will appear in popular Capitol Hill publications, including The Hill and Roll Call. ..... The group, Renewable Fuels Now, brings together existing agriculture and ethanol groups, firing what it calls an opening salvo at a time when the industry is under siege from groups accusing the corn-based biofuel of perpetrating everything from environmental ruin to "crimes against humanity" for contributing to world hunger. ..... The first advertisement resembles a hostage note, and features mismatched paper cut-out letters that form a sentence reading: "How much longer can we be held hostage to foreign oil?""[8]

And in an article entitled Why should America expand its use of renewable fuels like ethanol?, the NCGA (National Corn Growers Association) quotes support for its position on corn ethanol (and it's claim that "It takes 23 percent more fossil energy to create a gallon of gasoline than that gallon of gasoline itself contains. [Does that mean that all oil extraction now has a 23% negative EROEI?] With ethanol, it's the other way around. It takes 22 percent less fossil energy to create an equivalent amount of energy in ethanol.") from a study done by the Argonne National Laboratory, Center for Transportation Research. (Argonne is a U.S. federal lab under the DOE.) The NCGA says "We believe a recent Argonne National Laboratory study (Michael Wang, Center for Transportation Research, Argonne National Laboratory) has laid to rest some long-held misunderstandings about ethanol and its important role in reducing America’s reliance on imported oil and our greenhouse gas emissions. In terms of key energy and environmental benefits, cornstarch ethanol comes out clearly ahead of petroleum based fuels, and tomorrow’s cellulosic-based ethanol would do even better."[14] That study, however, conveniently omits the oil-derived pesticides and herbicides, of which a hell of a lot is used on corn. It also conveniently doesn't bother to detail any numbers supporting the claim but relies on one chart showing the numbers in summary. The NCGA, by the way, are not unbiased. According to GM Watch, "Syngenta, Monsanto and others contributed about 11 percent of the National Corn Growers Association’s $7 million budget in fiscal year 2001, says spokesman Stewart Reeve. According to South Dakota corn-growing farmer Dennis Mitchell, 'It’s a big conflict of interest when the NCGA and the Soybean Association take money from agribusiness when they’re supposed to be representing the interests of farmers.'."[10] And, according to Poltical Friendster, "ADM operates through association mouthpieces, such as the NCGA and Renewable Fuels Ass'n. ADM controls 70% of the ethanol market and block reduction of the high tariff protecting domestically produced ethanol."[12]

In his article, Biofuels: The Five Myths of the Agro-fuels Transition, Eric Holt-Giménez places the biased government/agro-business misinformation in stark perspective. In that article he says, "By showing us only one side, “biofuels” fails to help us understand the profound consequences of the industrial transformation of our food and fuel systems—The Agro-fuels Transition. ..... Industrialized countries unleashed an “agro-fuels boom” by mandating ambitious renewable fuel targets. Renewable fuels are scheduled to provide 5.75% of Europe’s transport fuel by 2010, and 10 percent by 2020. The United States aims at 35 billion gallons a year. These targets far exceed the agricultural capacities of the industrial North. Europe would need to plant 70% of its farmland to fuel. The U.S.’s entire corn and soy harvest would need to be processed as ethanol and bio-diesel."[16]

Agro/bio-fuels are not going to prevent peak oil. It is already behind us. The shaky maintenance of the plateau on which we are sitting, and any growth in liquid fuels over the past 2-3 years to offset declines from existing fields, has come from alternative sources like tar sands, CTL, GTL, deep water, increasingly from heavy oil and already from bio-fuels. This reality, of course, is kept from the public view by constant redefinition by the DOE of terms like "proven reserves" which is constantly upgraded to include an ever wider basket of liquid fuels.

With both post-peak decline and global warming coming at us we need a strong, globe-wide reassesment of the agro/bio-fuel issue. Global warming will dramatically increase the potential for major crop losses and seriously degraded yields in the years ahead, particularly in the poorest countries straddling the equatorial belt. And as the pace of energy decline (particularly crude oil decline) picks up over this next decade the impact on the global distribution system will be destructive, particularly the high cost, low-profit global food distribution system.

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Sources and additional reading:

1) How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer
2) Food to Biofuels a "Recipe for Disaster" By Thalif Deen
3) Nigeria: Agriculture, Pivot for Devt
4) Salazar: "Everyone Benefits From A Strong, Smart Farm Bill"
5) The alarm bells just keep ringing Eric Reguly
6) All About: Planes
7) Biofuels drive threatening food security--consumer watchdog By Ronnel Domingo
8) Ethanol Campaign Takes On Detractors By Lauren Etter
9) National Corn Growers Association - From Wikipedia
10) National Corn Growers Association
11) Itemized Lobbying Expenses for National Corn Growers Assn
12) National Corn Growers Association - NCGA
13) About Renewable Fuels Now
14) Why should America expand its use of renewable fuels like ethanol?
15) The Hidden Agenda behind the Bush Administration's Bio-Fuel Plan by F. William Engdahl
16) Biofuels: The Five Myths of the Agro-fuels Transition by Eric Holt-Giménez
17) Biofuels 2006 HOW IS THE GLOBAL VALUE CHAIN SHAPING UP? by Louis Strydom