Petrol additives such as ethanol and biodiesel are manufactured from plant crops as a means of reducing dependence on fossil fuels and potentially cutting carbon dioxide emissions. Under pressure both from rising oil prices, politicians resorted to knee-jerk policymaking. Ambitious long term targets were agreed in the EU and US, whilst Brazil maintained its investment in the more efficient production technologies based on sugar cane.

Corn, the raw material used to produce ethanol © Network for New Energy Choices

By 2008 one third of the US maize crop was diverted to biofuel production, encouraged by subsidies of $7 billion pa. Over 5% of global cereal production is allocated to biofuels, a rising proportion which has accounted for 30% of the increase in the price of corn in the period 2000-2007.

These policies have provoked outrage amongst groups campaigning for poverty reduction. Not only is land and food being consumed for rich motorists at a time of global food insecurity, but also the net saving in carbon dioxide emissions from maize-based ethanol has been exposed as moderate. The EU parliament has extensively modified its targets but the new US president has so far expressed support for biofuel producers.

Promotion of biofuels has been cited as a breach of the right to sufficient food enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, has urged the UN to respond to the food crisis as a human rights emergency and called for a freeze on new investment in converting food into fuel.

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