Wasteland of profit and greed

What has happened to food production in the developed countries? A large percentage of it now goes into making biofuels. To be honest, it’s not only developed countries that are diverting grains and other food products into the making of ethanol. Many developing nations are doing so too. But the hunger for fuel is still very high in the developed world, though it never tires of paying lip service to the fight against climate change.

That brings us to another question: Shouldn’t the demand for fossil fuel decline when the world is producing more biofuels? On the contrary, the price of crude oil has shot through the roof, hovering above $130 a barrel, because of the “unprecedented high demand”.
All this becomes even more confusing if we take the Saudi Arabian government’s comment into consideration. “The increase in (oil) prices isn’t justified in terms of market fundamentals,” it said a couple of days ago. In fact, it has called for a meeting “soon” with oil-producing and consuming nations to discuss how to deal with record prices.

So what’s the mechanism at work behind all this? Profit, undoubtedly. But don’t expect the West to question the motive of the big oil companies. Instead, what it’s bothered about is its consumers, the ones who can afford to pay an extra dollar or two to buy just a chunk of meat, when millions in the developing world survive on less than a dollar a day.

But ask the rich countries to shelve their biofuel policies and all hell will break loose. How dare the poor and the wretched of the earth question the “time-tested development model” of the West ? Even the governments and farm lobbies in the rich countries know their biofuel policies have contributed the most to the food crisis, but accept they will never.

China Daily