Analysis finds 58% of rapeseed oil in Europe is burned for fuel despite soaring prices and climate impact
If the land abroad used to grow the UK’s bioethanol were instead given over to food crops, an extra 3.5 million people a year could be fed, according to another study published by the Green Alliance on Monday. This would lower the impact of global undernourishment due to the war inAnd if the UK, US and EU halved their collective use of crop-based biofuels, Ukraine’s previous grain exports – which fed about 125 million people – could be wholly replaced, the paper concluded.
“At a time when Russia’s war threatens people in less developed countries with starvation, it’s indefensible to keep increasing biofuel use,” said Dustin Benton, the Green Alliance’s policy director. “Cutting back on biofuels is the fastest way of addressing global hunger in this crisis.”of studies have linked biofuels mandates to rocketing food prices because fuel crops increase demand for land – and reduce its supply.
He told the Guardian: “The rapid growth in demand for grain and vegetable oil for biofuels made it impossible for farmers to keep up, and government mandates for yet more growth in the future meant that those who held stocks of grain demanded very high prices to sell them because they anticipated prices would remain high in the future.”
About 18% of the world’s vegetable oils – nearly all fit for human consumption – are used for biodiesel that is supposed to cut planet-heating greenhouse gases.because they displace food crop cultivation on to previously unfarmed land – often by means of deforestation.so far this century – an area around the size of Egypt – with about half that land coming from natural ecosystems, a hyper-acceleration of development compared with the previous 8,000 years.
“The cost of biofuels is greater than the benefit from any reduced use of oil,” Searchinger said. “The error Europe and others have made is that they ignore this cost entirely. They act as though using land were free. The food crisis we are in reminds us that is not true.”
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