Is bioethanol a sustainable fuel or a threat to food for the poor?

With global warming and the spectre of a looming worldwide shortage of fossil fuels, the increased use of alternative fuels has tended to be welcomed wherever inroads have been made.

Not so in Brazil, where, according to Reuters, the Roman Catholic Church has warned that the rapid increase in ethanol production from sugar cane could have “a devastating social and environmental impact in the countryside”.


Brazil has pioneered the large-scale use of ethanol as motor fuel and is lining up more than $8 billion (R58 billion) in investment in the next four years to boost production.

The Catholic Church is worried that because cane production requires large-scale plantations, it will either drive people off the land or leave them vulnerable to long working hours, poor pay and physical strain.

Closer to home, the growth in the nascent biofuels sector has also raised a red flag because of fears that the commoditisation of maize, a staple basic food crop, will make it more expensive and deprive poorer families of much-needed food.

Business Report