MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Massive production of bio-fuels: “crime against humanity”

Massive production of bio-fuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, said on Monday United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler.

"Producing bio-fuels today is a crime against humanity," UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Using arable land to produce crops for bio-fuels has reduced surfaces available to grow food, many observers warn and "producing bio-fuels today is a crime against humanity" Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio in Germany. Mr Ziegler called on the International Monetary Fund to change its policies on agricultural subsidies and to stop supporting only programs aimed at debt reduction. Agriculture should also be subsidized in regions where it ensured the survival of local populations, he said. Mr Ziegler also accused the European Union of agricultural dumping in Africa. "The EU finances the exports of European agricultural surpluses to Africa ... where they are offered at one half or one third of their (production) price," the UN official charged. "That completely ruins African agriculture," he added. "In addition, international market speculation on food commodities must cease," Mr Zielger said. In an interview with the French centre-left daily Liberation, he warned the world was headed "towards a very long period of riots" and other types of conflicts stemming from food shortages and price increases. In recent months, rising food costs have sparked violent protests in Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Mauritania, the Philippines and other countries. In Pakistan and Thailand, army troops have been deployed to avoid the seizure of food from fields and warehouses, while price increases fuelled a general strike in Burkina Faso. Ziegler said that while families in the well-off West spent only about 10 to 20% of their budgets on food, those in the poorest countries laid out 60 to 90%. "It's a question of survival". He blamed the crisis on "the indifference of the rulers of the world," and singled out the US support of bio-fuels for particularly harsh criticism. "When a bio-fuel policy is launched in the United States, thanks to subsidies of 6 billion dollars, of bio-fuels that drains 138 tons of corn from the market, the foundation is laid for a crime against humanity to satisfy one's own thirst for fuel" Ziegler charged.