Fueling disaster - A community food security perspective on agrofuels

Dec 2007

Faced with dwindling fuel reserves and the intensifying impacts of climate change, the interdependency of our food and energy systems is more apparent than ever.
This report addresses the agrofuels debate from a fresh perspective: that of communities who are trying to feed themselves. Viewed from the vantage point of community food security, the analysis raises critical questions about agrofuel production in an industrial model. This report is addressed to the many constituencies within the community food security movement, including anti-hunger advocates concerned by rising food prices and dwindling food supplies; family farmers threatened by increased corporate control; and food system activists, conservationists, and others working in the areas of health, environment, and justice.
The community food security movement is a response to the predominant corporate-driven food system.
This report argues that the trend towards massive expansion of agrofuel production is the latest step in a progression towards industrialization and corporate consolidation of the world’s land, food, and water resources. Agrofuel production causes the same environmental, health, and labor problems as the industrial-scale production of other agricultural commodities grown for food or food inputs (e.g., corn). The trend toward agrofuels, however, is particularly alarming because of the rapid rate at which farmland, forests, and other productive land are being converted into fuel-crop monocultures, depleting precious resources such as water and topsoil in the process. Equally troubling are the new alliances being formed between agribusiness and energy conglomerates that are actively working against the goals of the community food security movement.
The report presents evidence of the impacts of agrofuels in the following areas: Food Security and the Right to Food, Agricultural Workers’ Rights, Community Economic Development and the Environment. Attention is given to the impacts of agrofuels in both rich and poor countries, while emphasizing those communities in poor countries that are the most severely affected. While we primarily focus on the impacts of agrofuels in the Americas, the issues we analyze are part of a global trend.
The report concludes that when agriculture is used to fulfill fuel needs, it should be done from a community food security framework that includes diverse, sustainable, community-based farming and puts communities’ food needs first. Increasingly, the community food security movement is pointing to food sovereignty, the right of people to determine their own food and agricultural policies, as offering a clear step forward in the food versus fuel debate.

By: C. Steward (Grassroots International)

 
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