The proponents of using food for biofuel are getting brasher day by day though logic and common sense rule out diversion of food crops for alcohol making and its further use as a biofuel. The fact that half the population in this world do not have sufficient foods to keep them away from chronic hunger and malnutrition does not seem to be bothering their conscience as exemplified by the adamant and brash stand taken by a key official of the EU in justifying the EU program for biofuels from food crops.
"Andris Piebalgs, the EU's commissioner for development aid, published a paper Apr. 21 committing him to ensuring that work aimed at reducing poverty is not undermined by the Union's activities in other policy areas such as trade, agriculture and fisheries. While the paper states that the Union's officials have an "obligation" to monitor the effects of biofuel production on the world's poor, Piebalgs would not accept he was wrong to support the use of food crops for power generation during his previous role as the EU's energy commissioner. "I can clearly state today that biofuel policy has done no damage in the developing world," Piebalgs told IPS. "The focus is right." Holding the energy portfolio in the European Commission from 2004 until last year, Piebalgs was one of the most zealous defenders of an EU strategy that at least 10 percent of all journeys undertaken on the bloc's roads by 2020 should be powered by biofuels".
If powerful countries like the US can talk of economic sanctions on other countries in the UN forum for one reason or the other, it is time developing countries insist on international sanctions on those using valuable food crops for animal feeding or for fuel production. Running an automobile for pleasure can never get precedence over keeping hunger away from a human being!
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