meanwhile, I just went through the article on the World Bank report and added my comments in parentheses [like this] throughout.
Some of it is snarkiness, but also serious. I hope others can see that most of the OP article is unbacked assertions. I've responded more in depth to the part of the article that gets to the point.
Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis
Internal World Bank study delivers blow to plant energy drive
Aditya Chakrabortty
The Guardian, Friday July 4, 2008
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
[ Who remains unnamed, so we must trust from the “damning” World Bank secret report that he/she is truly internationally respected at a global financial body.]
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.
[This ain't your mama's report. It don't just contradict. It contradicts emphatically. It will add to pressure. Emphatically.]
Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.
"It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.
[Bush, embarrased? WTF? If it hasn't happened after all the horrors of the last 8 years, it's not likely]
The news comes at a critical point in the world's negotiations on biofuels policy. Leaders of the G8 industrialised countries meet next week in Hokkaido, Japan, where they will discuss the food crisis and come under intense lobbying from campaigners calling for a moratorium on the use of plant-derived fuels.
[Calling for a moratorium on the use of plant-derived fuels. Who will benefit most immediately from that? Could it be . . . Satan? Oops, I mean producers of other fuels, which essentially = petrol.]
It will also put pressure on the British government, which is due to release its own report on the impact of biofuels, the Gallagher Report. The Guardian has previously reported that the British study will state that plant fuels have played a "significant" part in pushing up food prices to record levels. Although it was expected last week, the report has still not been released.
"Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises," said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. "It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat."
[Awfully secret, these reports are. Believe them we must, without seeing them.]
Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as "the first real economic crisis of globalisation".
[Key phrase, “estimates the World Bank”]
President Bush has linked higher food prices to higher demand from India and China, but the leaked World Bank study disputes that: "Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases."
[Compare that last statement re: grain consumption to the data available on grain exports and imports and it appears faulty]
Even successive droughts in Australia, calculates the report, have had a marginal impact. Instead, it argues that the EU and US drive for biofuels has had by far the biggest impact on food supply and prices.
[Droughts, not to mention floods, that destroy crops, therefore making them unusable either as food or fuel, have no impact on food prices. Seriously. There's a secret report that calculates the size of my male organ is driving the ladies insane. But it's from the World Bank, so it's probably bullshit]
Since April, all petrol and diesel in Britain has had to include 2.5% from biofuels. The EU has been considering raising that target to 10% by 2020, but is faced with mounting evidence that that will only push food prices higher.
"Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate," says the report. The basket of food prices examined in the study rose by 140% between 2002 and this February. The report estimates that higher energy and fertiliser prices accounted for an increase of only 15%, while biofuels have been responsible for a 75% jump over that period.
[Energy (read diesel fuel when considering farming) has more than doubled in the last few years, hell, it's more expensive than gasoline, and combines and tractors use a lot of fuel. If 2002 is the benchmark we're talking way more than doubled. Fertilizer prices have doubled in just the last year. Double is 100 percent, so I find the math of 15 percent impact from energy and fertilizer hard to follow or swallow.
I'm less familiar with wheat than corn, so I don't feel equipped to venture there, but it appears from a quick glance at the Interwebs that wheat is being used to produce ethanol and there is particular concern in Europe]
It argues that production of biofuels has distorted food markets in three main ways. First, it has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards the production of biodiesel. Second, farmers have been encouraged to set land aside for biofuel production. Third, it has sparked financial speculation in grains, driving prices up higher.
[This is really the first thing of substance the article says in regards to making an argument for its many claims. The first point, grain being diverted from food, is true to a limited extent. But the grain would go to “feed,” for livestock not to “food” for people. Feed indirectly becomes food for people through meat eating, pigs and cows mostly in the Midwest US. It is true that feed corn is being diverted into fuel production, but it is also true that ethanol byproduct DGS is being used as feed. And the numbers also show lots more grain is being grown. More corn was grown in the US in 2007 than any time prior to World War II, if I recall correctly. I don't know about EU vegetable oils, but I expect that would affect the price of vegetable oil more than the price of bread. Regarding farmers being encouraged to set aside land for biofuel production, farmers don't care too much what it's used for so much as they care about selling it at a price that allows them to pay their bills and convince the bank to give them the loan that is required to pay the costs of planting the crop in the first place. The third point, financial speculation, is pretty much what I've been arguing through this whole thread, though I think the World Bank author intends it differently]
Other reviews of the food crisis looked at it over a much longer period, or have not linked these three factors, and so arrived at smaller estimates of the impact from biofuels. But the report author, Don Mitchell, is a senior economist at the Bank and has done a detailed, month-by-month analysis of the surge in food prices, which allows much closer examination of the link between biofuels and food supply.
[edit: excuse me. They do name the report author. It's Don Mitchell]
The report points out biofuels derived from sugarcane, which Brazil specializes in, have not had such a dramatic impact.
[Don't people eat sugar? Isn't it detracting from the global sugar supply? p.s. I know the answer, but I'm not telling.]
Supporters of biofuels argue that they are a greener alternative to relying on oil and other fossil fuels, but even that claim has been disputed by some experts, who argue that it does not apply to US production of ethanol from plants.
"It is clear that some biofuels have huge impacts on food prices," said Dr David King, the government's former chief scientific adviser, last night. "All we are doing by supporting these is subsidising higher food prices, while doing nothing to tackle climate change."
[Oil good, biofuel bad, carbon tax good]
