Victoria's Green Matters - 23rd April 2011

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

For all those of us who drive, fuel prices continue to be a cause for concern. As the supply of readily available oil reduces, price increases will continue and many people will no longer be able to afford to drive their vehicles.

There is growing concern around the world that the search for a substitute for oil to run vehicles is causing the growing of food crops to be diverted into biofuel production. Food prices are rising sharply and the rush to develop ‘green’ fuels combined with poor harvests is leading to political instability and hunger. The World Bank has observed that food prices have risen by 15% from October to January, causing some 44 million people in low and middle-income countries to be thrust into poverty.

Countries around the world have taken up the challenge to produce biofuels and the European Union has said that 10% of transport fuel must be from renewable resources by 2020. Because of the need to produce these crops, prices have risen and farmers have moved away from growing food to fuel crops. If food crops are scarce, prices will increase and more people will go hungry. For the better off, for example, the rise in the price of corn means a few pence on the price of a pack of cereal but for poorer people that pack will be out of reach.

It is obvious that we cannot continue to be profligate with the oil that we have left. Rising prices for fuel will continue to effectively ‘ration’ petrol and diesel at the pumps for all except the very rich who will probably not notice. Inevitably, food production will be affected by the growing of biofuels; land cannot be used twice and even marginal land is used by poor people for subsistence farming and gathering wild food.