Yahoo News 17 Apr 08;
Ignoring biofuel's potential to boost development would be a "real crime against humanity," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Thursday in a pointed rebuke to a top UN official.
Lula's assertion was a firm response to UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler, who on Monday told German radio that "producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity."
The president made the comment at a regional conference here of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, which is trying to find strategies by which biofuel production can expand without threatening food supplies.
The issue comes at a sensitive time, with violent protests in Haiti over food and fuel prices causing the downfall of the government on the weekend, and similar unrest tied to the problem erupting in Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Indonesia in the past month.
"The real crime against humanity would be to just cast aside biofuels and push countries struggling with food and energy shortages towards dependency and insecurity," Lula told the conference in Brasilia.
He expressed "growing surprise" at the mounting criticism against biofuel and its perceived effect of forcing up food prices by decreasing the amount of farmland given to growing food crops.
Brazil has a leading role in the debate, being both a major food and biofuel producer and exporter.
"The surprise is all the stronger when you see that few of them (critics) mention the negative impact of the high price of oil on production costs, or that very few of them stand up against the negative impact of the subsidies and protectionism in the farm sector," Lula said.
Brazil is at the forefront of developing nations duelling with developed states in trade talks.
The developing countries want the United States and Europe to lower agricultural subsidies so their produce can better compete, while the developed countries want more access to developing service markets and industry.
Lula added that biofuels "are not a villain threatening food security."
Instead, the "incapacity of several countries to produce their own food is a consequence of distortions in the international trade of these products," he said.
