A UN official recently declared biofuels a "crime against humanity," because they leach agricultural resources from feeding people and direct them to feeding cars.
But one man's crime is another's boon. Surging biofuel use encourages farmers to maximize yield over all other considerations -- and they do so by lashing the earth with all manner of chemicals.
That's why shareholders in agrochemical companies are celebrating the explosive growth of biofuel use. Syngenta -- the Swiss-based maker of herbicides, pesticides, and genetically modified seeds -- has seen its shares more than double since the biofuel boom began.
Here's how one Wall Street analyst put it after Syngenta delivered yet another quarterly report marked by strong profit growth, particularly in Latin America:
The underlying trends are strong, driven primarily by high and rising crop prices driving farming to seek to maximize yields, which in turn pulls through more intense crop chemical usage ... We would expect the demand trends to be positive into 2008.
Monsanto -- the dominant producer of genetically modified seeds and traits, and also a major pesticide purveyor -- has also seen its shares more than double.
The firm is so jacked up about corn that it's investing $155 million to double GMO seed production at its major plant in Nebraska.
Meanwhile, Germany-based chemical giant BASF -- a major producer of fertilizer and herbicides -- also reported robust profits, driven by a strong agrochemical demand in South America, source of much of the soy to meet Europe's surging biodiesel demand.
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Jonas Posted 10:11 am
01 Nov 2007
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solar greg Posted 10:44 am
01 Nov 2007
Crops for biofuels will most probably be grown with whatever they can get their hands on. It all ends up in the water, killing life.
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sammy Posted 11:41 am
01 Nov 2007
Let the good times roll.
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Biodiversivist Posted 4:08 pm
01 Nov 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Jonas Posted 2:32 am
02 Nov 2007
So what exactly is the problem? Do you like dead poor people perhaps?
Pesticides are very good for people: they allow people to live. Bio-pesitices are welcome too, as long as they're not too expensive.
If we want to preserve a healthy environment in the few untouched parts of this world, we must first allow the people who live there to use dirty old synthetic pesticides. That will allow them to grow more food and fuels and to crawl out of poverty. If they don't do this, the environment is ruined for sure.
You can only reduce the ultra-high fertility rates in Central-Africa (7 children per women), with pesticides and fertilizers. Without them, the population explosion continues, and the environment will be wrecked even further.
The best thing for the environment is fewer people. And you get there with pesticides and fertilizers (look at the EU - its wealth, accumulated by industrialisation and modernism - has led to a decline in people - the most important factor in sustainability).
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Jonas Posted 2:34 am
02 Nov 2007
Instead, the FAO says: biofuels offer the best opportunity for rural development and poverty alleviation in decades. Without biofuels, a catastrophe brought by high energy prices and underdevelopment, will certainly occur.
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:08 am
02 Nov 2007
So what exactly is the problem? Do you like dead poor people perhaps?
Wtf?
Where does that statement come from?
You can only reduce the ultra-high fertility rates in Central-Africa (7 children per women), with pesticides and fertilizers. Without them, the population explosion continues, and the environment will be wrecked even further.
No. You do that by providing 1. Empowerment to Women, to make choices over family planning. 2. Providing loans which allow for long term family fiscal planning. (And primarily it helps to give it to the women, who don't while it away on vices so much)
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If anything Oxfam, and the International Water Blah show that BioFuels will be disasterous for the world's poor.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/11/oxfam-internati.h ...
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2007/10/iwmi-report-con.h ...
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:08 am
02 Nov 2007
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bookerly Posted 2:15 pm
02 Nov 2007
If there is anything that should be done locally and not globally, it might be biofuels (smile). Jonas is mis-stating the problem and the solution. Access to fuels is a major problem for the poor. The question is what type of solution will let them escape poverty and develop a decent standard of living.
Using their land to produce biofuel for a global market is NOT a solution. Rather than saving lives, it will kill the millions that Jonas is talking about when a few local landlords switch from edible food crops to fuel for European and American power.
OTH, locally, creating some fuel from biological sources is a key to escaping poverty, since it can free people from expensive imported fuel sources (oil, for example). But this does not mean chopping down the forests.
Rather it means providing access to technology that can turn waste biological matter (such as sewage) from problems into beneficial sources of both fuel (methane) and fertilizer.
I have seen the price of no-flush toilets listed as forty dollars US. A sum totally out of reach for the worlds global poor. But imagine if the developed nations split say, 40 billion dollars between them to provide these gratis to the worlds rural poor. A pittance for them, invaluable aid.
This would be a useful thing to do, and would marry environmentalism to development.
patrick in beijing
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