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Page added on January 7, 2013
Biofuels making poor people hungry in Guatemala
In the tiny tortillerias of this city, people complain ceaselessly about the high price of corn. Just three years ago, one quetzal — about 15 cents — bought eight tortillas; today it buys only four. And eggs have tripled in price because chickens eat corn feed.
Meanwhile, in rural areas, subsistence farmers struggle to find a place to sow their seeds. On a recent morning, José Antonio Alvarado was harvesting his corn crop on the narrow median of Highway 2 as trucks zoomed by.
“We’re farming here because there is no other land, and I have to feed my family,” said Mr. Alvarado, pointing to his sons Alejandro and José, who are 4 and 6 but appear to be much younger, a sign of chronic malnutrition.
Recent laws in the United States and Europe that mandate the increasing use of biofuel in cars have had far-flung ripple effects, economists say, as land once devoted to growing food for humans is now sometimes more profitably used for churning out vehicle fuel.
In a globalized world, the expansion of the biofuels industry has contributed to spikes in food prices and a shortage of land for food-based agriculture in poor corners of Asia, Africa and Latin America because the raw material is grown wherever it is cheapest.
Nowhere, perhaps, is that squeeze more obvious than in Guatemala, which is “getting hit from both sides of the Atlantic,” in its fields and at its markets, said Timothy Wise, a Tufts University development expert who is studying the problem globally with Actionaid, a policy group based in Washington that focuses on poverty.
With its corn-based diet and proximity to the United States, Central America has long been vulnerable to economic riptides related to the United States’ corn policy. Now that the United States is using 40 percent of its crop to make biofuel, it is not surprising that tortilla prices have doubled in Guatemala, which imports nearly half of its corn.
At the same time, Guatemala’s lush land, owned by a handful of families, has proved ideal for producing raw materials for biofuels. Suchitepéquez Province, a major corn-producing region five years ago, is now carpeted with sugar cane and African palm. The field Mr. Alvarado used to rent for his personal corn crop now grows sugar cane for a company that exports bioethanol to Europe.
In a country where most families must spend about two thirds of their income on food, “the average Guatemalan is now hungrier because of biofuel development,” said Katja Winkler, a researcher at Idear, a Guatemalan nonprofit organization that studies rural issues. Roughly 50 percent of the nation’s children are chronically malnourished, the fourth-highest rate in the world, according to the United Nations.
The American renewable fuel standard mandates that an increasing volume of biofuel be blended into the nation’s vehicle fuel supply each year to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and to bolster the nation’s energy security. Similarly, by 2020, transportation fuels in Europe will have to contain 10 percent biofuel.
Large companies like Pantaleon Sugar Holdings, Guatemala’s leading sugar producer, are profiting from that new demand, with recent annual growth of more than 30 percent. The Inter-American Development Bank says the new industry could bring an infusion of cash and jobs to Guatemala’s rural economy if developed properly. For now, the sugar industry directly provides 60,000 jobs and the palm industry 17,000, although the plantations are not labor-intensive.
But many worry that Guatemala’s poor are already suffering from the diversion of food to fuel. “There are pros and cons to biofuel, but not here,” said Misael Gonzáles of C.U.C., a labor union for Guatemala’s farmers. “These people don’t have enough to eat. They need food. They need land. They can’t eat biofuel, and they don’t drive cars.”
In 2011, corn prices would have been 17 percent lower if the United States did not subsidize and give incentives for biofuel production with its renewable fuel policies, according to an analysis by Bruce A. Babcock, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University. The World Bank has suggested that biofuel mandates in the developed world should be adjusted when food is short or prices are inordinately high.
Concerned about the effects of its biofuel mandate on world hunger, the European Commission recently proposed amending its policy so that only half of its 2020 target could be met by using biofuels made from food crops or those grown on land previously devoted to food crops.
The current American mandate, established in 2007 by Congress, can be waived by the Environmental Protection Agency, but, according to law, such adjustments focus on domestic issues like cases in which biofuel “requirements would severely harm the economy of a state, a region or the United States,” the agency said in an e-mail when asked for comment.
Once nearly self-sufficient in corn production, Guatemala became more dependent on imports in the 1990s as a surplus of subsidized American corn flowed south. Guatemalan farmers could not compete, and corn production dropped roughly 30 percent per capita from 1995 to 2005, Mr. Wise said.
But cheap imports disappeared once the United States started using corn to fulfill its 2007 biofuels standards. “The use of maize to make biofuel has led to these crazy prices,” said Guy Gauvreau, head of the United Nations World Food Program in Guatemala. It “is not ethically acceptable,” he added.
In part because the agency’s primary food supplement is a mix of corn and soy, it cannot afford to help all of the Guatemalan children in need, Mr. Gauvreau said; it is agency policy to buy corn locally, but there is no extra corn grown here anymore. And Guatemalans cannot go back to the land because so much of it is being devoted to growing crops for biofuel. (Almost no biofuel is used domestically.)
The southwestern village of La Ayuda is now an island of rickety dwellings in the middle of a giant African palm plantation. Félix Pérez, 51, used to grow corn, beans and fruit behind his home. He now walks about three miles to a cheap hillside plot that he rents for four months of the year. “Every day it’s more difficult to survive since we live off the land, and there’s less and less,” he said.
Although Susana Siekavizza, executive director of Grepalma, the local industry association, said that Guatemalan palm is currently exported for cooking oil, the high prices that it commands reflect heightened global demand for a crop also used in biofuel. It is exported in a raw form that can be distilled into biofuel in the receiving country, and Ms. Siekavizza said there was “interest” in manufacturing fuel in Guatemala.
Production of sugar cane, long a mainstay Guatemalan crop, has also skyrocketed as biofuels opened new market opportunities. Pantaleon Sugar Holdings, which once exported only food products, now uses 13 percent of its production for fuel. Local sugar prices have doubled.
For Guatemala’s largest landowners, long-term leases with large biofuel companies are more profitable and easier to manage than cattle ranching or renting to subsistence farmers.
In small towns like San Basilio, representatives of one palm company are pressing farmers to lease their fields.
“I’m trying not to because I need that land to grow corn,” said one farmer, Gilberto Galindo Morales, 46. But he added that farming has become difficult as nearby plantations divert and deplete rivers to feed industrial-scale irrigation systems. Ash from burning cane fields after harvest also damages his corn crop and irritates his children’s lungs, he said.
With sometimes violent confrontations over land and labor, plantation gates are secured with armed guards. Still, Ms. Siekavizza of the trade group contends that the belief that palm cultivation is robbing people of food is “more myth than reality” since much of Guatemala’s terrain and soil composition “is not well suited to growing corn.”
In the remote Mayan villages in the north of the country, the incursion of plantations has brought a few good jobs and some training, but many complain of low wages and the backbreaking nature of the work, which mostly involves picking the small red fruits from African palm trees or off the ground. “We sold our land, so now we have to work, but I think it’s better when you grow your own,” said Juana Paula Tec Choc in the village of El Cancellero. “At least then you have some security.”
A report last year by the United States Department of Agriculture noted Guatemala’s potential for biofuel production, saying that palm plantations tended to be on “underutilized” agricultural land and applied no dangerous pesticides to the trees; that assessment could be important for getting palm-based fuel approved for use in the United States.
But villagers in El Cancellero disputed that, saying they suspected chemical poisoning was behind the mysterious deaths of four young children last year. On a recent afternoon, a crop duster buzzed overhead, and workers wearing tanks fitted with spray hoses trudged along a narrow road that separates what remains of the village from endless rows of squat palms.
14 Comments on "Biofuels making poor people hungry in Guatemala"
BillT on Mon, 7th Jan 2013 3:33 am
And America wonders why it is hated more and more in foreign countries. There are parts of the world I would love to see, but the Empire has made too many enemies in them for it to be safe for me to go there. I am glad I got to see Dubai before it becomes involved in a Middle East war. I would love to see the pyramids, but…
My only question now is when and where will the first nuke be exploded and what country will it be in. I think it will come from the US as we have no qualms about using them. Ask Japan if you doubt that.
GregT on Mon, 7th Jan 2013 5:44 am
US foreign policy has been a disgrace, and many people around the world will be glad when the US collapses.
But if you think that the US has been bad, just wait until China takes over…..
BillT on Mon, 7th Jan 2013 5:55 am
GregT, I don’t think China is going to take over. They will continue to accumulate resources, but they are not a culture to ‘take over’ the world. I think they just want their share as do all non-western countries.
They can see what trying to control the whole world does to a country. They are NOT fools like the US. No, I see them dominating the Asian area as a power, but not any other continent or country. They do not have military bases in foreign countries, like the US. They have corporations instead.
No, I think they will be content to have the US withdraw into it’s small country and stop meddling in the rest of the world, after it collapses.
GregT on Mon, 7th Jan 2013 6:02 am
BillT,
I wonder what will happen with Chinese interests in Canadian resources once the US has no where else to turn?
DC on Mon, 7th Jan 2013 9:03 am
Canada will be brow-beaten into rescinding any of the very modest ‘deals’ they have made with China. In Canada, there there is unique view of what constitutes ‘foreign control’. In the view of most citizens and certainly the media and gov’t elites, Near-total US domination and control over Canada’s resource AKA NAFTA, does not constitute a problem, but rather, is normal and expected, if the issue is thought about at all.
BUT, if China wants to invest a paltry few % in Canadian resources(of any kind), well, that is treated for the most part, as the coming apocalypse itself. The very idea that an Asian power invested in Canada is treated with the greatest of suspicion, and much talk about cyber-hacking, espionage, and threats to sovereignty thrown in for good measure. However, the same standard (of fear mongering) , of course, never applies to the current situation of near complete US control over Canadian resources, and by extension, the gov’t itself.
No, as much it pains me to say it, Greg, whatever modest investments that China is allowed to make, will be declared null and void, it its deemed in the US interest that it be so. And you wont see a peep out of Ottawa when the order comes in to do just that.
Arthur on Mon, 7th Jan 2013 2:18 pm
Bill: “And America wonders why it is hated more and more in foreign countries.”
I think that is the case with ruling elites, like in Russia, China, Middle-East, who really understand what is going on, or in certain circles in the US (libertarians!) but in general in the ‘normal population’ still see the US as the US likes itself to be seen: as an admirable example to be followed.
Take Holland, last Christmas show, two weeks ago, attended by 200,000 people in Amsterdam Arena, one big orgy of pro-Americanism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh3c7m73pcw
America theme from time stamp 20:15 onwards. People singing along in english. Was integral televized on new years eve.
I regularly post on Dutch forums… forget about 9/11-truth, ‘ZOG’, peakoil, neocon warmongering, ww2-revisionism… no chance. The US are holy.lol
BillT on Mon, 7th Jan 2013 2:19 pm
I think you are correct, DC. Canada is destined to be annexed to the Us. It is too close and important to be allowed to be free. Ditto, Mexico for other reasons. Fortress America will eventually extend from Central America to the Arctic, wait and see.
Arthur on Mon, 7th Jan 2013 3:27 pm
“Fortress America will eventually extend from Central America to the Arctic, wait and see.”
That is what I think too, but not much more. Although I hope not, Orwell could very well be right with his vision of geopolitical power centers of the future:
http://kolahun.typepad.com/kolahun/images/2008/06/25/1984_fictious_world_map1_2.png
Turkey will be leading the yellow area (‘disputed territories’), China will not occupy northern India, but the rest could very well materialize.
According to the novel 1984 there will always be remote wars, always a permanent threat from outside enemies (‘terrorists’ fit the description).
MrEnergyCzar on Mon, 7th Jan 2013 4:40 pm
Wait until biofools production is really ramped up in the states… no one is immune…
MrEnergyCzar
GregT on Mon, 7th Jan 2013 4:58 pm
“Fortress America will eventually extend from Central America to the Arctic, wait and see.”
I also believe this to be the case, although not without some conflict. Vancouver BC is the largest port city in western Canada, and the population of immigrants to whites exceeded 50 percent back in the late 90s. Much of our population is now Chinese. Everywhere you go in the city, signs on store fronts are in one Asian dialect or another, and many now contain no English. There are entire malls where white people are not even welcome.
One headline in this morning’s newspaper reads: “U.S. Coast Guard to probe B.C. oil-tanker risk”. There is a proposal to expand an existing pipeline from Alberta to Vancouver that could triple the amount of crude oil shipped to China. The US state of Washington has stated that the increase of tanker traffic poses a risk to US waters.
There is also a growing movement concerned with Enbridge’s proposed “Northern Gateway pipeline”, that will also transport oil from Alberta to northern BC on it’s way to China. There have been full page ads in the papers here for the last couple of months promoting this project, even though public sentiment appears to be against it.
These 2 projects combined are expected to deliver over 2 million barrels per day once they are at capacity. Add to this BC lumber, coal, and natural gas, and I don’t see China just simply lying down and handing over their interests to the US, no matter what Ottawa says.
DC on Mon, 7th Jan 2013 5:43 pm
Enbridges leaky NG will never be built. The only reason Harper is pushing it at all, is his US oil backers want the sort-of-oil to be sold somewhere, anywhere. Just like Keystone was never meant for N.A. markets, but was meant to be piped to the US gulf coast for eventual sales on the world market, so it is with NG. China is not the specific buyer, though to be sure they would probably be buying some of that sludge. No, the real goal is to give the US fossil-fuel cartel that runs the tar-sands another ‘out’ to world markets. Be it Asia, or Australia, India, W/E they dont care.
However, the indians are opposed and so are a great many British Columbians. Even that fence sitter Clark has realized to rubber stamp N.G. would likely cost her her job in a general election. Anyone following the issue would note that there is *new* proposed route that essentially bypasses B.C. by going though the Yukon! As if they think shifting that leaky pipe up north will mute the protests any.
GregT on Tue, 8th Jan 2013 12:34 am
DC,
The Harper Government has already agreed to the take over of Nexen by Chinese state run CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Company) for 15.1 billion, so the resources are already owned by China, not the US. What is yet to be decided is whether or not the US government will allow the take over by CNOOC of oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.
The First nations are protesting Bill C-45, which Harper has already passed. This bill allows for oil pipelines and electric transmission lines to cross watersheds and first nations lands without the need to adhere to environmental standards or to be passed by popular vote in first nations councils.
The stage has been set. It will very difficult to stop the Northern Gateway from going through.
If the polls are any indication, as they have been historically, the Clark government does not stand a hope in hell of winning the elections in May of this year.
Kenz300 on Tue, 8th Jan 2013 3:50 pm
Maybe the problem is too many people.
If you can not provide for yourself you can not provide for a child.
It is amazing that the poorest people in the world are having the most children and trapping them and their children into a life of poverty, hunger and despair.
Every country need to develop a plan to balance its population with its resources, food, water, energy and jobs,
Those that do not will be exporting their people and their problems.
Access to family planning services needs to be available to all that want it.
Kenz300 on Tue, 8th Jan 2013 3:56 pm
Many current biofuel plants that use corn for feed stock are investigating second generation conversions of their plants.
Second generation biofuels made from algae, cellulose and waste are the future of biofuels.
Today there are biofuel plants being built that use waste or trash for feed stocks. Every trash dump can now be converted to produce biofuels, energy and recycled raw materials for new products.
The biofuels industry has moved beyond corn and sugar cane and into cellulose, algae and waste.