On August 15, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Jacques Diouf, called for the development and application of international standards to regulate world agrofuel markets.
These alternative fuels may indeed be an important factor in reducing poverty in developing countries. In theory, they would open new markets to farmers and enable them to increase their average income. We must keep in mind, however, the consequences of focusing excessively on this type of production.
For example, the unprecedented proliferation of crops for use in agrofuels has led to increasing prices for food staples, which represents a real threat for food crops. This in turn has weakened food security in many countries, particularly in Africa.
At a meeting in Stockholm during World Water Week in August, international experts also emphasized that these crops require large amounts of water to produce. They are further concerned that large-scale production of these agriculture-based fuels would monopolize too large a portion of already-limited water resources, to the detriment of basic food production.
The situation is exacerbated by the environmental impact of producing agrofuels, whose total collective cost has yet to be evaluated, particularly in Brazil and Malaysia where forests continue to disappear rapidly.
Jacques Diouf’s appeal thus aimed to alert public opinion and leaders to the dangers of fully liberalizing this sector, which would eliminate all types of regulation in favor of comparative advantage and competition alone. This would cancel out the potential benefits of expanding the production and trade of agrofuels, leading instead to a worse food situation in the poorest countries and increased environmental degradation.
We can only hope that Brazil, the United States, China, and the European Union, which are seeking to develop the international market for agrofuels, will heed Jacques Diouf’s call and set out principles for regulating the sector at the next United Nations international conference in June 2008.
This, however, must only be the first step; in addition to international standards specifically for agrofuels, WoAgri’s approach recommends an entirely new mode of governance for all agricultural markets.
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