Will Jatropha Invade Mozambique?
Via Campesina Confronts the Global Agrofuel Industrial Complex
By: John E. Peck, executive director, Family Farm Defenders
Posted 10/22/08 from Maputo, Mozambique
On Oct. 19th 2008, at the opening ceremony of the Fifth International Via Campesina Conference in Maputo, Mozambique, over 600 representatives from 50+ countries were gathered to hear a welcome address by the President of the Republic of Mozambique, Armando Emilio Guebuza. While Pres. Guebuza had some encouraging remarks about the future potential of peasant agriculture, his suggestion that jatropha was a solution for Mozambique’s energy crisis was not well received by many in the audience. Jatropha is but one of a whole host of crops (including maize, soya, canola, sugarcane, cassava, sunflower, palm, coconut, and castor among others) now being aggressively promoted as feedstock for the global agrofuel industrial complex. Such crops, often genetically engineered, grown in monoculture plantations, and destined for export markets, hardly deserve to be called “biofuels” since they have no life affirming qualities and undermine all the basic principles of food sovereignty. read more
The Threat of Agrofuels –
Industrialized GMO Monocultures Will Only Hurt Farmers, Undermine Food Sovereignty, and Make Global Warming Worse
By: John E. Peck
Executive Director, Family Farm Defenders
As concerns about peak oil mount, many people are declaring agrofuels to be the latest panacea for saving civilization from its impending collapse. Propelling this bandwagon is a whole gaggle of venture capitalists, free trade advocates, farm commodity groups, agribusiness giants, biotech outfits, and – yes – the oil giants and car makers. As detailed in the July 2007 issue of Seedling (available online at www.grain.org), many of the biggest agrofuel boosters are familiar opponents to those now struggling for global justice, food sovereignty, and land reform. read more
Along with several other organizations, Family Farm Defenders recently issued a call for a moratorium on agrofuel development in the U.S. For more info, click here
For a more detailed background document on the need for an agrofuel moratorium, click here Δ
Want Milk, Forget Ethanol Tax Repeal
Newsday, Jan. 22, 2008, Letter to the Editor
By: Fred Matthews, FFD board member and dairy farmer (Lafargeville, NY)
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opleta5547193jan22,0,5071548.story?page=2
As a third-generation dairy farmer and one of the remaining 6,500 dairy farmers in New York State, I find ridiculous Sen. Charles Schumer's proposed legislation to help lower milk prices.
Getting rid of the ethanol tariff will neither address the dire crisis of the New York dairy industry nor help consumers. The end of cheap oil has contributed far more to the end of "cheap" milk than higher feed prices associated with ethanol. Fuel costs for processing, manufacturing and shipping milk have spiraled upward for processors, while my farm's cost for a gallon of diesel has gone from $1.68 to $3.40.
Feed costs are just one small aspect of what goes into the price of milk and are not even part of the official formula that determines what price farmers receive for milk. Before the recent boom in milk prices, 2006 was the worst year for New York dairy farmers since the Great Depression. More than 500 went out of business. Though prices paid to farmers collapsed, consumers were still facing rising milk prices as the middlemen-milk processors, handlers and supermarkets-reaped the profits.
If we want to truly address rising food prices, we need a comprehensive energy policy that moves us away from a petroleum-based economy. And we need antitrust enforcement to ensure farmers a fair price to cover their costs of production while protecting consumers from price-gouging.
Schumer should look at the oil companies making record profits and the market power of supermarket chains and agribusiness processors who hold the real sway over retail milk prices.
Biotech Crops Will Hurt U.S. Family Farmers and Deepen the Energy Crisis
By: John E. Peck
A version of this article was published by Common Dreams on 3/29/06 and is found at:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0329-32.htm
As concerns about peak oil mount, the latest group to jump on the renewable energy bandwagon has been the biotech industry. In a March 13th 2006 press release building towards their national convention in early
April in Chicago, Jim Greenwood, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), proclaimed that a new wave of genetically engineered technologies “will end our national addiction to oil.” Nothing could be
further from the truth. read more...
