Pedro Innecco

With an international food crisis knocking at the backdoor of developed countries, comments started to fly around about biofuels being the main culprit for the rise in food prices.

How easy it is for one to blame others for their own failures. What I find amusing is the kind of comments that goes around about Brazilian biofuels. Forgive me for being so blunt, but I think that 30 years of experience in the biofuel market does give Brazil more know-how and leverage to talk about the subject. And if one thinks that the Brazilian perspective is solely motivated by commercial opportunities with regards to its biofuels, well think again from another perspective:

Brazil’s production of biofuel is so far mostly aimed towards the internal market. Just look how haply Brazil is powering its cars with flexi-engine fuels that support the mixing of any ratio of gasoline and ethanol.

Since sugar is not a ration or basic food product like corn or beans, it is very anecdotal to claim that it is responsible for the raise of food prices. Moreover, only 0.02% of Brazil’s arable land if used for sugarcane. From this 0.02%, only half is used for fuel production (that is 0.01%). There are no issues in Brazil with over production of sugar cane favouring other types of crops, and due to the size of Brazil (amongst other elements I raised previously) it is quite far-fetched to think it would ever be.

So if the Europe is concerned about the raise in food price, here is some food-for-thought (no pun intended): What about Europe’s unfair agricultural subsidies that not only harm their own small farmers, but also poorer regions like South America and Africa?