Agrofuels are criticized for their impact on food security and the climate

2024-09-11 22:22:16

Harvesting at a forced site for oil and petroleum in Saint-Philbert-sur-Risle (Eure), August 7, 2023. JOEL SAGET / AFP

Fueling up with “green” fuel is increasingly becoming a bad idea. Oils from agricultural crops, presented for a long time as a way to decarbonization of the transport sector, lead to many effects that are now documented on food security, the environment and human rights. First, by diverting crops from their food use, then by diverting land that has served as a carbon sink, and finally, by increasing the risk of land subsidence in developing countries. growing up.

In a The report was published on Wednesday September 11NGO Oxfam is calling the European Union (EU) to limit policies supporting agrofuels, and asks member countries to take measures to prevent the use of agrofuels from agricultural crops.

In 2021, European countries use 26 million tons of food and feed crops as agrofuel, representing the production of 5.3 million hectares of agricultural land. Globally, demand is growing: 15% of vegetable oils produced worldwide are intended for oils. According to Oxfam estimates, the global production of agrofuels, if used directly for human food, could have met the minimum caloric needs of 1.6 billion people.

A rather hypothetical estimate, since most of the crops used to make engines (soybeans, sunflowers, etc.) are primarily used as animal feed, but which indicates the size of the levels of matter when the biofuel house work avoids competition with food shortages. While 730 million people suffer from hunger – more than 9% of the world’s population – and 2.3 billion do not have food security, the role of agrofuels must be taken into account, estimates NGOs.

Read also: This article is reserved for our subscribers Faced with the threat of a food crisis, agrofuels are accused of worsening tensions

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For this report, Oxfam called upon the work of accountant Chris Malins, that study the impact of demand for petroleum on world food prices and price volatility. The group pointed out in particular the example of the doubling of the price of vegetable oil between the end of 2020 and 2021, in part linked to the growth in demand for hydrotreated vegetable oils (HVO), a synthetic biodiesel. Well before the Russian invasion of Ukraine which declared the markets frozen in 2022, the prices of food raw materials followed the same path as that of energy prices.