The scandal of agricultural fuels in the countries of the South

François Houtart

29/06/2011

Opinión

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The idea of extending the cultivation of fuel crops in the world and particularly in the countries of the South is disastrous. It forms part of one global perspective for a solution of the energy crisis. In the next fifty years we shall have to change the energy cycle, moving from fossil fuels, which are becoming increasingly scarce, to other sources of energy. In the short term, it is easier to use that which is more immediately profitable, that is to say, fuel crops. This solution, with the reduction of possibilities of investment and the hope of rapid profits, appears to be the best option as the economic and financial crisis develops.

As always, in a capitalist project, what economists call externalities is simply ignored, that is to say, that which doesn’t come into a market calculation, and in the case at hand, this means the economic and social damage inflicted. In order to contribute to the solution of the energy crisis on the order of 25 to 30 per cent of the demand, it will be necessary to employ hundreds of millions of hectares of arable land for the production of fuel crops, the majority in the South, since the North simply does not have sufficient arable land. It will also be necessary, according to certain estimates, to expel some sixty million campesinos, or small producers, from their lands. The price of these "externalities" which are not paid for by capital but by communities and individuals, is frightening.

Fuel crops are produced under a regime of monoculture, which destroys biodiversity and contaminates soils and water. Personally, I have walked kilometres in the plantations of the Chocó, in Colombia, and I haven’t seen a single bird, a single butterfly, or a fish in the rivers, because of the great quantities of chemical products, such as fertilizers and pesticides. In the face of the water crisis that affects this planet, the use of water to produce ethanol is quite irrational. In effect, to produce one liter of ethanol from maize, one needs to consume between 1200 and 3400 litres of water. Sugar cane also demands enormous quantities of water. The contamination of soil and water has reached levels hitherto unknown, creating the phenomenon of a "dead sea" in river estuaries (20 square kilometres in the mouth of the Mississippi, to a great extent caused by the extension of maize monoculture for producing ethanol. The extension of these crops involves a direct or indirect destruction (replacing other agricultural or grazing activities) of forests which are carbon sinks due to their capacities for absorbing carbon.

The impact of fuel crops on the food crisis has been demonstrated. Not only does this production conflict with food production in a world where, according to the FAO, more than a thousand million people go hungry, but has also been an important component in the speculation on food production in 2007 and 2008. A report from the World Bank indicates that in two years, 85 per cent of the increase in food prices that pushed more than 100 million people below the poverty line, was influenced by the development of fuel crops. Because of this Jean Ziegler, during his mandate as Special Rapporteur of the United Nations for the Right to Food, referred to fuel crops as a "crime against humanity", and his successor, the Belgian Olivier de Schutter, has asked for a five-year moratorium on these crops.

The extension of monoculture also involves the expulsion of many small producers from their lands. In the majority of cases, this is done through fraud or violence. In countries such as Colombia or Indonesia, the job is done by the armed forces or paramilitary forces, neither of which hesitates to massacre those who defend their lands. Thousands of indigenous communities in Latin America, Africa and Asia are dispossessed of their ancestral lands. Tens of millions of small producers have been displaced, especially in the South, in order to develop a style of agricultural production and for the concentration of landed properties. The result of all this is a savage urbanization and both internal and international migration.

It is also necessary to note that the wages of workers are very low and working conditions are generally inhuman because of the demands of this style of production. The health of workers is gravely affected. During a session of the Permanent Tribunal of Peoples on European multinational companies in Latin America, which took place together with the Latin-American-European Summit in May of 2008, in Lima, Peru, note was taken of many cases of seriously malformed children, as the result of the use of chemical products in the monoculture of bananas, soya, sugar cane and palms.

It is fashionable to claim that fuel crops are a solution to the climate crisis. It is true that internal combustion engines emit less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when fueled by these products, but when one considers the whole cycle of production and transformation and distribution of the same, the balance is hardly positive. In some cases, this is negative when compared to fossil fuels.

If fuel crops are not a solution to the problem of climate change, or if they are only in a very marginal sense able to mitigate the energy crisis, and if they cause important negative consequences, both social and environmental, we must ask ourselves why they occupy such an important place today. The reason is that in the short and medium run they increase considerably the rate of profit of capital. Because of this, the multinational petroleum, automobile, chemical and agribusiness companies are interested in this sector. They have as partners financial capital (for example, George Soros), businessmen and local latifundistas, the inheritors of the old rural oligarchy. Hence the real role of agroenergy is in practice to help part of capital to escape the crisis and to maintain or increase their capacity of capital accumulation.

In effect, the agroenergy process is characterized by a super-exploitation of workers, a refusal to acknowledge externalities, the transference of public funds to the private sector, allowing for rapid profits, but also the hegemony of multinational corporations and a new form of dependence of the South with respect to the North. All this is presented with the image of benefactors of humanity with the production of "green energy". With respect to the governments of the South, this results in a drain of currencies in order to maintain, among other things, the levels of consumption of the privileged classes.

The solution is to reduce consumption, above all in the North and to invest in new technologies (especially solar). Agroenergy is not bad in itself and can bring interesting solutions at a local level, on the condition of respecting biodiversity, the quality of soils and water, food sovereignty and small farming, that is to say, everything contrary to the logic of capital. In Ecuador, President Correa has had the courage to stop the exploitation of petroleum in the reserve of Yasuni. We may hope that progressive governments of Latin America, Africa and Asia may demonstrate the same resolve. To resist, both in the North and the South, the pressure of economic powers is a political and ethical problem. With this in mind, to denounce the scandal of fuel crops in the South becomes a duty.

- François Houtart, former professor in the Catholic University of Louvain, is the founder of the Tricontinental Centre and author of the book: El Escándalo de los Agrocombustibles para el Sur, Ediciones La Tierra y Ruth Casa editorial, Quito (Ecuador), 2011.

(Translation: Jordan Bishop)

https://www.alainet.org/es/node/150858