04/11/2007 (Inquirer.net), Manila - Consumers who are supportive of efforts to cut down the country's oil import bill, as a way of preventing upticks in food prices amid the current long-drawn oil price spike, should think twice about biofuels.

According to consumer welfare advocate Raul T. Concepcion, the Philippines -- which was among the vanguards in the rush to massive cultivation of biofuel crops -- is now feeling the negative effects of this move on food supply, be it food from produce or from livestock.

Concepcion echoed the views of Jean Ziegler, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, who has called on governments to temporarily stop the drive for biofuel production.

Ziegler, a sociology professor at the University of Geneva and the University of Sorbonne (Paris), has branded the production of biofuels a "crime against humanity" at a time when land, produce and investments are being diverted from food production despite widespread hunger in some parts of the world.

While international oil prices surged to record-high levels in the past week-breaching the $96-a-barrel mark last Thursday, Concepcion warned of an uptrend in prices of basic goods starting mid-November.

Concepcion, who chairs the private sector watchdog Consumer and Oil Price Watch, said in a phone interview consumers were no longer just at the mercy of oil price spikes.

"We have grown to accept that consumption of petroleum drives prices of consumer goods," Concepcion said. "Now, even efforts to cut down the use of this fuel is making prime commodities more expensive."

He was referring to the international drive to produce biofuels or agrofuels-crop-based fuels that cost less in terms of environmental impact as well as foreign currency spending for oil importers--to which the Philippines is emerging as one of the most active adherents.

Concepcion urged Malacañang to map out a strategy that would ensure an adequate supply of basic goods as well as a subsidy scheme for the poor.

At the same time, he said the government should take heed of Ziegler's warnings about the harmful effects of rushing head on into the biofuels craze.

Through the UN General Assembly, Ziegler has been urging governments to stop for five years the production of biofuels.

Ziegler's recommendation is grounded on concerns that billions of dollars of support for the biofuel industry would drive up food prices and further limit resources available to fight hunger.

According to the website of Ziegler's office (www.righttofood.org), the right to food--considered a human right--means that governments must not take actions that result in increasing levels of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition.

(In 2000, the UN Human Rights Commission created the office of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food as a human rights mechanism of the UN.)

Also, the right to food means that governments must protect people from the actions of others that might violate this right.

In his report to the 62nd Session of the UN GA dated Aug. 22, Ziegler said a five-year moratorium should ensure that biofuels do not cause hunger.

The 23-page report said the respite should provide time for an assessment of the potential impact on the right to food, as well as on other social, environmental and human rights.

In the Philippines, more and more money from domestic and foreign investors are being poured into the creation of plantations for biofuelcrops as well as for processing plants.

On Oct. 30, the Department of Agriculture reported that there were so far at least P34.08 billion worth of proposed investments related to biofuel production.

Involving various local companies partnering with 15 firms from Australia, Japan, United States, China, the United Kingdom, Germany and India, these projects cover 725,300 hectares of land to be planted to sugarcane, cassava, jatropha or tuba-tuba, corn, oil palm and coconut.

Of the total amount, P19.19 billion is dedicated to the cultivation of crops while P14.9 billion is earmarked for ethanol distilleries, biodiesel refineries and related facilities.

These investment commitments, while pursuing business opportunities, are also answering the call of the Biofuels Act that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed last January.

Among the first to jump the bandwagon is a newly formed unit of the state-run Philippine National Oil Co., PNOC Alternative Fuels Corp.

PNOC-AFC has firmed up a total of at least $2.3 billion in joint ventures with foreign partners including that with British firm NRG Chemical Engineering, which is interested in planting to jatropha up to a million hectares of land in Palawan and Mindanao.

PNOC-AFC officials have said the firm has started talks with other local and foreign firms on possible projects, including Korea's Samsung Corp., Japan's Sumitomo Corp. and JGC, the National Biofuels of the United States, Malaysia's HDZ and Biogreen Energy Sdn Bhd, and the Brunei National Petroleum Co.

Also, the state firm is in talks with government agencies for the provision of land that could be used for jatropha nurseries and plantations, such as the Philippine Army on a total of 137,537 hectares of land spread in various military reservations across the nation.

The Department of Justice also offered land in three penal colonies, covering a total area of 50,000 hectares.

As for local firms, those showing firm interest in biodiesel include Chemrez Technologies Inc., Limketkai Manufacturing Co., Enerfuse (which groups Flying V, Unioil Petroleum Philippines Inc., Seaoil Philippines Inc. and Eastern Petroleum Corp.), Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. and Petron Corp.

Eastern Petroleum last week announced it recently tied up with China's Guanxi Estates on a $30-million biodiesel venture, which covers a planned 2,000 hectare cassava plantation in Saranggani province.

In Negros Oriental, the Tamlang Valley Jatropha Plantation started in July the cultivation of 50,000 hectares of private land for the biodiesel crop.

Further down South, MindaNews reported that the Davao City Multi-Culture Development Corp. and its Malaysian partner Palm Oil Industrial Cluster Sabah Sbn Bhd has inked a deal to plant an initial 1,000 hectares to jatropha.

DCMDC president Antonio Vergara was quoted as saying the partnership covered at least 60,000 hectares of jatropha plantations in Davao City, but the target was to cultivate some 269,000 hectares in Southeastern Mindanao.

In a recent visit to the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net), Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap said his department was aware of concerns about biofuel crop cultivation and food security.

Yap said the Department of Agriculture was looking into the matter and that the government wanted to ensure that biofuel production would not eat up on food supplies.

In his report to the UN GA, Ziegler recommended that governments should ensure biofuels were produced from non-food plants and agricultural wastes and crop residues, rather than food crops.

He said this move would avert massive rises in the prices of food, water and land and the diversion of these resources away from food production.

Ziegler added this would require immediate, massive investment in "second generation" technologies for producing biofuels.

Further, Ziegler proposed that governments should adopt appropriate measures to ensure that biofuel production was based on family agriculture, rather than agro-industrial methods.

This move would avert creating hunger and instead create employment and rural development that would not bypass the poor, the professor said.

Concepcion, the COPW chair, said prices of basic goods were expected to start increasing in mid-November and that "we are already feeling the effects of what Ziegler is talking about."

Concepcion said further that prices of bread, dairy products and even meat would increase because of rising prices of inputs here and abroad.

He said the cost of flour has been rising because of a low supply of wheat as producers saw output drop due to bad weather.

As for milk and dairy products, he said cows in Australia and New Zealand--sources of Philippine imports--were also not producing due to erratic conditions of the climate that have been attributed to global warming aside from the rising cost of animal feeds, made mainly from corn.

"The price of corn used to manufacture animal feeds have quadrupled because growers are turning to cultivation for biofuel feedstock," Concepcion said. "The same is happening with sugar although, locally, we are currently experiencing a respite because it is harvest season."

At a press conference at the UN headquarters in New York last Oct. 25, a transcript of which is posted in the UN website, Ziegler said the creation of biofuels to protect the environment and reduce oil dependence was not a bad idea, but its negative impact on hunger would be catastrophic.

He said that in 2006, the price of wheat doubled while that of maize or corn quadrupled.

"When tons of maize, wheat, beans and other food staples were converted to fuel, food prices rose and arable land was lost to food production," he said. "As prices rose, the poorest countries could not pay, and the poorest people, generally living without access to subsistence farming, could not purchase more expensive foodstuffs."

The amount of corn that needed to be burned to make enough ethanol to fill a single car's fuel tank could fill a child for an entire year, Ziegler said.

Ziegler decried the conversion of arable land to biofuel production as a crime against humanity and reiterated his call for the five-year moratorium.

The sociologist also repeated offers for investors to use non-food crops that could grow in soil unfit for food production as an alternative source of biofuels.

Ziegler cited as an example the jatropha, apparently the current crop of choice for most biofuel investors in the Philippines.