California’s newly adopted “low-carbon” fuel standards look to reduce the carbon footprint by accounting for sourcing and production methods of biofuels. Other states are likely to follow suit, and the House Agriculture committee will take up the issue next week. With truly renewable energy sources; such as solar or wind-generated power, hydrogen fuels, and electric vehicles still widely unavailable, a significant percentage of these more stringent standards will be met by industrial biofuels, or “agrofuels.”

The Food First report, Agrofuels in the Americas, looks back over the last several years of the ethanol/biodiesel boom. The authors conclude that using crop land to produce fuel is an irrational strategy – one that negatively affects climate change, the environment, food security, and rural development worldwide.

The report from Food First exposes the myth that ethanol and biodiesel will lead to energy independence, noting that federal mandates for ethanol “far exceed the U.S.’ current capacity for fuel crop production…Even if all of the U.S.’s 90 million-acre corn crop were converted to ethanol, just 12-16% of our gasoline would be replaced – barely enough for current ten percent ethanol blends.” The report contends that much of the U.S.’s demand for ethanol will be satisfied by sprawling plantations in the developing world.

Dr. Richard Jonasse, lead author and editor of Agrofuels in the Americas, states that “the way the U.S. decides to account for the carbon “savings” of agrofuel production is so important – it could disrupt the food security and the working lives of millions of rural poor around the globe, determine the course of global warming, and seal the fate of the world’s remaining forests.”

According to a study in the report by Guatemalan researcher Dr. Laura Hurtado, the agrofuels boom has already led to “considerable loss in the amount of
land available for food cultivation” in Guatemala. Dr. Hurtado finds that since the agrofuels boom began several years ago, small family farmers are being pushed off their land, agribusiness firms are expanding colonial-style plantations, and the human right to food of thousands of indigenous farmers has been systematically violated.

Similar evidence from Brazilian activist Maria Louisa Mendonça finds that 80% of Brazil’s carbon dioxide emissions come from deforestation in the Amazon – largely driven by the expansion of soy monocultures. Mendonça contends that much of this deforestation is being done through illegal land grabs – or “grilagem”- that are then planted to sugarcane and soy for agrofuels. Mendonça debunks the myth that agrofuels are good for rural development in Brazil, citing numerous workers rights violations, industry concentration, health risks to workers, and land evictions.

“The expansion of the agrofuel industry has had a devastating effect on smallholder farmers and laborers in Brazil,” Mendonça says, “…the harmful consequences of this industry far outweigh the benefits. The environmental destruction of the Cerrado and the Amazon is taking away things that can never be returned, and all that Brazilians get in return are lives of difficult migrant labor, an increased concentration of land, and more wealth in the hands of those who are powerful enough to take what they want.”

Agrofuels in the Americas also takes on the myth of “second generation” cellulosic biofuels. According to authors Rachel Smolker and Brian Tokar, “Proponents of cellulosic fuels fundamentally lack a realistic appraisal of how much biomass exists, how much energy can be derived from it, and what the ecological consequences of biomass removal on such a large scale will be. This “disconnect” with reality is leading us down the wrong path at the wrong time! We cannot simply substitute biomass for fossil fuels without stripping the planet bare and burning up every available scrap of plant matter.”

Agrofuels in the Americas is a wake-up call for policy makers and elected officials. With 75% of U.S. renewable energy subsidies going to agrofuels, an examination of the effects of that public investment is long overdue. The authors of Food First’s report advocate for a new approach to food and energy, one based on conservation, efficiency, and local ownership and production of healthy food and truly renewable energy.

The report, Agrofuels in the Americas, can be read at www.foodfirst.org