‘Biofuels not to blame for food crisis’

MANILA, Philippines — The US National Biodiesel Board and the Manila-based Asian Institute of Petroleum Studies Inc. (AIPSI) have both debunked claims that global biofuels development was adversely affecting the food supply and causing food prices to rise steeply.

“The research done by US experts and the US Department of Agriculture has proven that biofuels-related feedstock demand has limited impact on the global food supply and pricing,” US NBB chief executive Joe Jobe said.

“The presence of biofuels in the market, in fact, was helping keep US gas prices—now at more than $4 a gallon—from going even higher, amid skyrocketing prices in the world market,” Jobe said.

For his part, AIPSI managing director Rafael Diaz said that on a global basis, biofuels production was eating up less than 10 percent of the global food supply. This was hardly enough to make a dent on overall supply and to drive food prices up.

The food versus fuel debate was even flimsier when applied to the Philippines, he said, since the country, unlike the United States, was not using corn as a feedstock for ethanol production or soybean for biodiesel manufacturing.

“To say it has no impact (on the food supply) is naïveté, but to pass on nearly the whole problem of food supply and prices as being the result of biofuels (development and production) is outright ridiculous,” Diaz said in a statement issued Monday.

Both Jobe and Diaz were reacting to the recently released Gallagher Report from the United Kingdom, in which Renewable Fuels Agency chair Ed Gallagher said first-generation biofuels had the potential of increasing greenhouse gas emissions instead of reducing them, and also drive up food prices worldwide.

Diaz cited the case of actual biodiesel demand and production in the country as an example.

For the current requirement of a 1-percent biodiesel blend (B1), he said the country only needed around 60 million to 70 million liters of the alternative fuel each year, considering the demand for diesel at between 6 billion and 7 billion liters.

By 2009, when the mandate for the 2-percent biodiesel blend (B2) takes effect, he said, biodiesel demand would go up to between 112 million and 114 million liters.

“From coco oil production of 1.4 billion liters per year, more or less, the biodiesel component will translate to just 4 to 5 percent for B1 and 8-10 percent for B2,” Diaz explained.

The B1 and eventually B2 requirements, therefore, represented less than 10 percent of the country’s total coconut oil production each year, “so it would be obvious that the steep rise in coco oil price cannot be totally attributed to biodiesel,” he said.

“In my own view, the excellence of coconut as a health food and as a fuel additive to mitigate global warming and air pollution has created new high-volume demand and is seen as a threat on supply availability by the traditional users of coconut oil,” Diaz said.

Apart from the manufacture of fuel additives, coconut oil is currently being used in the production of health supplements, such as the popular virgin coconut oil, detergents, skin care products, cosmetics and specialty lubricants.

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