2013-05-21T08:14:58-04:00 Lucia Fry http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=lucia-fry Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Lucia Fry Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1796901 2012-08-17T10:54:42-04:00 2012-10-17T05:12:09-04:00

Lucia Fry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lucia-fry/
Now, let me ask you another. If a bad drought ruined the corn harvest in your country, and if dozens of countries around the world relied on it, what should be done with the little that can be salvaged? Should it go into the food system, or would you prefer the government to divert it into fuel?

You would think that would be a no-brainer: the corn should be used for food.

But guess what? That's not what happens in real life. Because regardless of how destroyed a harvest is, countries that operate biofuel mandates still insist on a fixed volume of that crop (yes, that's volume, not percentage) being diverted out of the food system, so it can be turned into petrol. And that can leave very little for food.

That's what is happening in the USA this summer. A devastating drought has decimated the corn crop and most of what has been salvaged is still being turned into biofuels on the government's insistence.

If the impact of this was felt only in the USA, then perhaps the rest of the world wouldn't have to take notice. But the globalisation of markets means that rising corn prices in the US is having an immediate knock-on effect across the rest of the world.

After trying to find cheaper alternatives, which inevitably become more expensive themselves, ordinary consumers, farmers and processors are all eventually forced to spend more money. Now, with prices already reaching an all-time high, governments are considering how to react. The fear is that some countries like Russia will respond by banning grain exports, something that could bring the world's food system to its knees.

And it's the most vulnerable people - those living in the world's poorest countries who already spend up to 80% of their household income on food - that are being hit first. They haven't recovered from previous food crises and don't have any food stocks or financial reserves to fall back on. But you and I will also be hit, and we'll notice it at the supermarket check-out too.

Instead of improving the situation, the UK's biofuel targets are fanning the flames. As the price of US corn and corn ethanol rises, the UK seems to be joining the frenzy, with the Ensus refinery announcing that it will restart production to turn 1 million tonnes of wheat into ethanol each year. Instead of working to prevent an increase in the price of a loaf of bread, UK biofuels industry is, it seems, profiting from the crisis.

With growing numbers of UK families struggling to put food on the table, and whole communities in poor countries on their knees, isn't it time the British public demanded an end to the madness of biofuel mandates that benefit a few whilst destroying the lives of others?]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1618139 2012-06-22T07:38:35-04:00 2012-08-22T05:12:22-04:00

Lucia Fry http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lucia-fry/
Billed as the second earth summit, Rio+20 is about to be wrapped up. The pre-cooked outcome document - ready from day one - is being signed off as I write by a collection of leaders and deputy leaders. Collectively, they and their officials have had the privilege of ensuring that there is almost nothing in the text that moves the world forward, nothing that will make tomorrow's world a better place for people to live in.

After innumerable hours and days and months of meetings and discussions and negotiations, almost every commentator is agreed: Rio+20 is a wash out. With the developed world so far unwilling to make real new commitments, so the developing world has also refused to dance along to the 'green economy' tune that the North has been playing. While Rome is burning, there's not even a fiddle in sight. All we get is -in Nick Clegg's own words - an 'insipid' text drawn up by civil servants, and rubber stamped by world leaders.

Is this a surprise? Not really. Rio+20 has been hard work from the beginning. World leaders, including Obama, Merkel and our own David Cameron (despite the Summit being rescheduled to fit around the Queen's Jubilee) were absent from the attendance list. In the end, while the Deputy PM and Secretary of State Spelman were there, even the Secretary for State for International Development didn't invest in a plane ticket.

The first Earth Summit created a mountain of hope as even the US president joined others setting out an ambitious agenda for change. This second Summit - twenty years later - will have the opposite effect, leaving only mounting frustration.

But let's not lay all the blame on Rio+20 either. It is just one of a series of summits, that have failed to tackle the real issues, with this week's G20 barely even mentioning in their communique, the need to tackle the causes of food insecurity - most critically, biofuels. Avoiding Eurozone meltdown is undoubtedly important, but isn't it also a good excuse to turn a blind eye to problems facing the poorest people now? The question in everyone's minds now is: what will it take to get our leaders to focus on real issues that actually affect people's lives?

All eyes now turn to David Cameron's Olympics 'Hunger Summit'. After several summit false starts, we can but hope that the Hunger Summit will truly mark the beginning of a process to tackle the causes of the world's food crisis.]]>