20100401
africanews

Participants at the 19th Session of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States and the European Union, MPs have learned how food security can be improved rather than jeopardized through the sustainable introduction of bio-energy.

Meghan Sapp, Secretary General of Partners for Euro-African Green Energy (PANGEA) said the oil price spike in 2007/08 were a result of many factors, such as bad cereal crops in Australia, Canada and elsewhere due to drought, underinvestment in agriculture for decades, increased demand for protein in Asia, and Latin America as well as increased demand for cereals in Africa.

“When oil prices went up, so did the prices of fertilizer, tractor diesel and transportation.

Yet when oil prices came down, the high prices for food commodities—which at the time were blamed on biofuels—also came down. The foodstuff whose price had increased the most was rice, which is not used anywhere as a feedstock for biofuel,” said Sapp.

According to the FAO, over the last 20 years, food production has risen steadily at over 2% a year, while the rate of population growth has dropped to 1.14% a year.

Access to food depends on levels of poverty, purchasing power of households, prices, and existence of transport and market infrastructure of food distribution systems.

Trade barriers and subsidies also reduce access to food markets for developing countries. IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment Programmes (80s-90s), forced developing countries to drop tariffs, eliminate food marketing boards, and be victims of dumped food exports from the US, Europe (and Brazil), destroying local markets.

WTO Agreement on Agriculture keeps away tariffs, duties, domestic and export subsidies, and other protection mechanisms yet the CAP and Farm Bill still exist.

“Several countries are developing policies to ensure that biofuel production is produced sustainably with a positive impact on their social and natural environments. Mozambique is leading Africa in this regard. Other supranational policies like the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels and the Renewable Energy Directive have all placed high priority on ensuring food security in areas where biofuels are produced,” said Sapp.

“There are many opportunities to increase food and fuel production simultaneously, thereby increasing energy and food security while counteracting decades-long underinvestment in agriculture. Through crop-rotation and various forms of intercropping, crops can be grown for both food and fuel offering farmers diversified markets and opportunities to gain from production of co-products,” she said.

Better agriculture production methods alone can make a big difference, allowing the extra production to remain available for energy production, rather than taking food supplies out of mouth in order to put into tanks. There needs to be more technology transfer in Africa on how to use wastes—human, animal and agriculture—in order to create energy sources while cleaning up the environment at the same time.

“In order to succeed with biofuels and use them as a tool for development, there needs to be a strengthening of regional markets for both food and fuel with increased access and Infrastructure. More investment in agricultural research and extension services to increase productivity/efficiency is needed to counteract the last few decades of neglect,” said Sapp.

Low-cost technologies using local resources for local needs need to be developed instead of just imported technologies for developed countries. In addition, governments need to take responsibility while also taking action to promote biofuels including blending mandates, feed-in tariffs for renewable sources and mini-grids for rural areas.