Rush for biofuels threatens starvation on a global scale

The rush towards biofuels is theatening world food production and the lives of billions of people, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser said yesterday.

Professor John Beddington put himself at odds with ministers who have committed Britain to large increases in the use of biofuels over the coming decades. In his first important public speech since he was appointed, he described the potential impacts of food shortages as the “elephant in the room” and a problem which rivalled that of climate change
“It’s very hard to imagine how we can see the world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous demand for food,” he told a conference on sustainability in London yesterday.

“The supply of food really isn’t keeping up.”

By 2030, he said, the world population would have increased to such an extent that a 50 per cent increase in food production would be needed. By 2080 it would need to double. But the rush to biofuels – allegedly environmentally friendly – meant that increasing amount of arable land had been given over to fuel rather than food.

The Times