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BIOFUELS AND FOOD SECURITY: CONFLICT OR COMPLEMENTARITY?
Ignacy Sachs
AUGUST 2008 (IPS) - It makes no sense to single out biofuels as the scapegoat for high food
costs without considering the effect of the spectacular rise in oil prices,
writes Ignacy Sachs, honorary professor, School of Advanced Studies in
Social Sciences, Paris, and visiting fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Sao Paulo.
We ought to strive for greater moderation
and efficiency in energy consumption and take all the necessary steps to
assure the complementarity between food and biofuels production. It should
be possible to greatly increase biofuels output without encroaching on land
used for food production or resorting to deforestation.
Sachs calls for using waste and marginal land to grow robust oilseed plants;
transforming into biofuels (including biogas) agricultural, forest, and
domestic residues and moving as quickly as possible to second generation
cellulosic biofuels; intensifying research on biodiversity, in particular on
oilseed-producing tropical trees and on the third generation of biofuels
(algae).
/NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN AUSTRALIA, CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, CZECH
REPUBLIC, IRELAND, POLAND, UNITED STATES, OR UNITED KINGDOM/ (END/2008)
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