|
Biofuels Good for Global Warming, Bad for Poor
 I heard this on the radio this morning, but it took a Google search to find this, from last week.The burgeoning use of cereals and other commodities to satisfy appetite for biofuels could keep food prices high for the next decade, says the FAO, impacting developing countries, the urban poor, and farmers' livelihoods. Drowning from ocean levels, storms, and climate change/global warming or starvation due to higher food prices. Life is choices! The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) last week published its latest Agricultural Outlook 2007-2016, in partnership with the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). It said that while the recent price hikes in farm commodity prices are due to temporary factors like drought in wheat growing regions, structural changes, such as increasing demand for biofuels, is casting a cloud over the long-term picture. The growing use of cereals, sugar, oilseed and vegetable oils to produce fossil fuel substitutes are underpinning both crop prices and, indirectly, livestock product prices due to higher animal feed costs. The changes, says the report, "could well maintain relatively high nominal process for many agricultural products over the coming decade." The FAO and OECD predict that the impact will be felt most keenly by net food importing countries and the urban poor. And for farmers who need feed for their livestock, it means mounting costs and lower incomes. Unless, of course, the livestock markets are allowed the freedom to respond to market forces.... Moreover, the belief that high prices are here to stay could spur more policy reforms away from price support, the report predicts, "reducing the need for border protection and [providing] flexibility for tariff reduction". Does the report think that's bad? I guess so, or it wouldn't be reported! Last week Nestle chairman Peter Brabeck expressed his fears for the future of food prices in the long-term. Braback was quoted by the Financial Times as saying that "will have a long-lasting impact on food prices". The FT said the comments were "among the starkest warning that a long period of rising food prices could stoke broader inflationary pressures". Posted by: Bobby 2007-07-16 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=193607 |