From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERThe jury is also still out on whether the biofuel boom, and the scramblefor land it has triggered, will benefit small farmers and other poorpeople or generate sustained growth. 53 Biofuel plantations for maizeor sugar create jobs, but working conditions are often horrific, wagesare low, and the plantations can squeeze out small farmers. The chairof the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues recently warnedthat 60 million indigenous people worldwide face eviction from theirland to make way for biofuel plantations.In the case of palm oil, small farmers account for a significantproportion of total production in Indonesia and Malaysia, where 80per cent of the world’s palm oil is grown, and could stand to benefitfrom the boom. However, many of Indonesia’s 4.5 million smallproducers are heavily indebted to the companies that buy their crop,and have little power to negotiate decent prices. As with any othercommodity boom, the extent to which small producers can exercisepower in the new market will help to determine whether biofuelsexacerbate exclusion and inequality in the countryside, or whetherthey will provide new pathways out of poverty for small farmers.Moving arable land out of food production and into biofuelswill push up food prices: good news for farmers, but bad for poorconsumers, especially if it leads to global food shortages, as some fear.By early 2008, after several years in which demand outpaced supply,global food stocks had fallen to their lowest level in 20 years. 54 Thefinal irony is that some companies are deforesting land in order toplant palm oil, thus aggravating the global warming which motivatedthe biofuel boom in the first place.An extraordinary amount is being asked of agriculture. The WorldBank estimates that to meet projected demand (based on a combinationof rising population and changing dietary preferences), global cerealproduction will have to increase by nearly 50 per cent and meatproduction by 85 per cent between 2000 and 2030. In addition, theburgeoning demand for biofuels and animal feeds cuts into theproduction of staple foods. 55 Not only must yields rise (there is littlespare land, and the remaining forests must be conserved), but theymust do so sufficiently rapidly and cleanly to compensate for othernegative trends, such as climate change, salinisation, and deterioratingsoil fertility.132