Biofuels Threaten Food Access In Latin America – UN

A global increase in biofuel production threatens to make food for Latin America’s poor less accessible, a United Nations body said on Monday.

“In the short term, it is very probable that the rapid expansion of agrofuels at a world level has important effects on Latin America’s agriculture,” the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said in a paper.
Growing biofuel output would compete with food crops for water, land and capital and thereby increase food prices and “put at risk access to food by the poorest sectors,” the FAO said in a report presented at its conference for Latin America and the Caribbean.

It is the latest in a wave of criticism that has questioned the environmental and social benefits of biofuels and put major producers like Brazil on the defensive.

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