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Today in Biofuels Opinion: “These long supply chains are going to have to get shorter”

July 9, 2008

The Renewable Fuels Association (US), Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, European Bioethanol Fuel Association and the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association, in a letter to the G8 heads of state: “…the sudden and rapid increase in food prices around the world has multiple causes, not the least of which is oil already priced at $140 per barrel.

We would note that two food grains that have seen the most volatile markets, wheat and rice, are not significant feedstocks for biofuel production. Further, common  biofuel  feedstocks like corn or sugarcane are not produced on the same acres.  Corn is not grown
in rice paddies.”

Environmental and food writer Michael Pollan: “I don’t know exactly what percentage of greenhouse gas we would reduce if everybody planted a garden, but it would be a percentage and it would be a help. If you go back to the victory garden moment in American history during World War II…within a year or two, we actually got up to producing forty percent of our produce from home gardens. No food is more local, no food requires less fossil fuel, and no food is more tasty or nutritious than food you grow yourself. So it’s not a trivial contribution.

“One source of our sense of powerlessness and frustration around climate change is that we are so accustomed to outsourcing so much of our lives to specialists of one kind or another, that the idea that we could reinvent the way we live, change our lifestyles, is absolutely daunting to people….One of the things gardening teaches is that you can actually feed yourself. How amazing, you’re not dependent on a huge, global system to feed yourself. I think where climate change is taking us is to a point where many of us will need to take care of ourselves a little better than we do now…These long supply chains are going to have to get shorter.”

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    Written by Jim Lane · Filed Under Opinion 

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