Biofuels Could Benefit World's Undernourished

The book finds that rising food prices are a hardship for some urban poor, who will need increased assistance from the World Food Programme and other relief efforts. However, it notes that the central cause of food scarcity is poverty, and seeking food security by driving agricultural prices ever lower will hurt more people than it helps.

In addition, growth in biofuels production may have unexpected economic benefits, according to the experts who contributed to the report. Of the 47 poorest countries, 38 are net importers of oil and 25 import all of their oil; for these nations, the tripling in oil prices has been an economic disaster. But nations that develop domestic biofuels industries will be able to purchase fuel from their own farmers rather than spending scarce foreign exchange on imported oil.

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World biofuels production rose 28 percent to 44 billion liters in 2006, according to the figures compiled since research on Biofuels for Transport was completed; fuel ethanol was up 22 percent and biodiesel rose 80 percent. Although biofuels comprise less than 1 percent of the global liquid fuel supply, the surge in production of biofuels in 2006 met 17 percent of the increase in supply of all liquid fuels worldwide last year.

This rapid growth is having unintended impacts. Large-scale biofuels production can threaten biodiversity, as seen recently with palm oil plantations in Indonesia that are encroaching on forests and edging out the endangered orangutan population, worrying European consumers who have begun importing palm oil from Southeast Asia. In Brazil, the Cerrado, a vast landscape of biologically rich forests, brush, and pasture just south of the Amazon, is coming under pressure as sugar cane cultivation expands.

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