Biofuel Production, Use Impacting Food Security

“The food security impacts [of using food-based biofuels] are multiple and severe,” Marie Brill, executive director of ActionAid USA, and Timothy Wise, policy research director of the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University, write in an Al Jazeera opinion piece. Using food for biofuel “has a direct impact on the cost of food” and puts “added stress on scarce [water and land] resources,” they write. “This is why the [U.N. Committee on World Food Security (CFS)] put the issue of biofuels and food security on this year’s agenda and commissioned an expert report,” they state, adding, “Indeed, the report confirmed the negative impacts of biofuels to date and recommended decisive action. Our own report confirms that one of the main threats to our ability to feed the world in the future is the continued expansion of first generation biofuels.” Brill and Wise criticize the CFS for rejecting a “straightforward proposal that biofuels policies that harm food security should be reformed” (10/17).

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