US and Europe should cut biofuel production

America and Europe need to reduce their cultivation of biofuel crops; this is the opinion of American economist Jeffrey Sachs.

He believes that they are having an adverse affect on the supply of basic foods and are the cause of a growing crisis in food price increases.

Mr Sachs, an advisor to the UN Secretary-General, claims that the current situation does not make sense and there is a looming crisis for food supplies worldwide.

He believes that larger scale biofuel production did previously make sense, but now world food prices are making the idea of massive increases in biofuel production untenable.

Grain cultivation intended for the production of Biofuels have been under increased pressure over the past few weeks over concerns that they are unduly competing with grains for food production.

Mr Sachs claims that the growing of corn in the U.S. is shifting dramatically towards biofuel production with over 30% of the crop being turned into petrol instead of being eaten.

Over in Europe the EU wants increases in biofuel production to amount to 10% of all petrol consumed over the next 12 years.

Mr Sachs is strongly in favour of switching to biomass fuel production which is a derivative of sewage and household waste. But is urging the EU and US government to reconsider their opinion on increases in biofuel crop growing.

By 2015, UN member states have agreed to meet eight targets to build a better world. The primary objective is to reduce extreme poverty and hunger.

Mr Sachs considers that responding to disasters with food aid is not the answer, we should instead be assisting famers in poorer nations to grow food crops not biofuel plants.

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http://in.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idINL0547034820080505

http://blogs.iht.com/tribtalk/business/green/?p=158