UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food calls conversion of foodstocks to fuel a “crime against humanity”

The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, said it was a “crime against humanity” to convert food crops to fuel.

Dr. Ziegler, United Nations in a report that was submitted to the UN General Assembly on October 25,  called for a five-year ban on conversion of land for biofuels. He said that using land for biofuels would cause “massacres” and said that biofuels are “a total disaster for those who are starving”. “232 kg of corn is needed to make 50 litres of bioethanol,” Ziegler said on Thursday. “A child could live on that amount of corn for a year.”

He blamed biofuels for the rise in food prices around the world. He said that second-generation biofuels, made from agricultural waste or non-agricultural products, would be available by the end of the five-year ban.

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