 |
 |
 |
|
A Perspective on Bio-fuel crops
Bio-fuels an Opportunity for World's poor
By: K. Anderson - Thursday, November 1, 2007
Source: Belize Sustainable Farmer
 Hello!,
Recently, your organization, "Bio-Diesel from Algae," voiced concern that the increasing global reliance on grain as a source of fuel could have serious implications for the world's poor". http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7065061.stm
The distinction of "grain" may be lost in light of comments such as those of Jean Ziegler, regarding the use of bio-fuels as a "crime against humanity". I have been a farmer in Belize, a developing country, in the 1980s and 90s.
I am aware of the market for agricultural produce, and how difficult it is to be a successful farmer. My little farm became the largest local market vegetable farm in Belize, providing crops to all the major hotels, restaurants and supermarkets.
The government of Belize on many occasions used my farm as a show-case, as I developed all the infrastructure and managed it in a sustainable fashion. I am writing to you in the hope that you recognize the great opportunity bio-fuels present to farmers in poor countries.
In Belize, I did a small amount of exporting of agricultural produce. The markets are very difficult to enter, and prices are very low, given increases in fuel and input costs. Bio-fuels could change that export dynamic, and make the export of processed agriculture in the form of fuel a net cash source for poorer countries.
Mr. Ziegler is overlooking a very important economic reality, as he seeks to stifle the free markets with his warning. He fails to grasp that in poorer countries, which are still predominantly agriculturally-based, an increase in crop prices is a boon to their economies. When it is easier for farmers to make money, for whatever reason, then there will be more successful farmers, farming more efficiently, and producing greater income.
That is good for the poor, many of whom are farmers. When food prices rise as a response to competition with bio-fuel raw materials, then farmers again make more money, contributing to their economies, enabling the employment of more labor at higher rates, allowing these people to develop, rather than becoming dependent upon gifts for their survival.
Gifts of food, including the innane idea of a "right to food" (implying a right to food someone else has produced, without respecting the right of the foods' original producer) do not contribute to the _development_ of a developing country.
Time and time again, free food has undermined the business of existing distributors in the private sector food distribution chain, and lowers the prices farmers local to such free food gifts receive for their earned produce--stunting private economies, lowering the overall standard of living for their people.
The IMF should make a stand against the encroachment of UN and government regulations stifling the new opportunity for farmers of bio-fuel raw material production, in the name of private-sector development, and in the name of good governance that encourages self-reliance and local competency. The simple argument that using crop lands to produce fuel rather than food is deceptive as a premise substantiating the argument that such usage will lower food production.
When land produces greater earnings, food prices will rise until they can compete to fulfill the market. That's good for agriculture-based economies, and may support your statement that bio-fuel production has "serious implications for the world's poor", but in the sense of having seriously good implications.
Regards,K. Alexander
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|