Ending Food Waste Not Biofuels Should Be Food Security Priority

by Alex Brinkley (National Newswatch) Groups concerned that using grains to make biofuels threatens food security should be paying more attention to the impact of waste on the food supply, says Andrea Kent, Vice-President of Government and Public Relations at Greenfields Global.

Corn and other grains bought to make biofuels have helped shore up prices for farmers during the last 15 years, she told the Senate agriculture committee. “When it comes to food security and sustainability, the problem will not be biofuels. The problem will be food waste. That is what groups like Oxfam should pivot toward because that is the real threat to global food access. It will not be biofuels production.”

The money flowing to farmers from the biofuels sector has helped change farming practices so “we can grow three times more corn on the same hectare than we used to be able to,” she said. “Increased innovation and productivity by our farmers is good news. It means that we have a reduced quantity of cropland that is farmed, and it means Canadian farmers have become incredibly more productive with less land than they ever have before.”

Higher farm incomes help rural Canada and “also apply to countries like Ethiopia and Kenya which have also introduced mandates for biofuels, including ethanol.”

“Biofuels are proven to be the cleanest and most sustainable source of liquid fuel available to the transportation sector,” he said. “Canadian-proved conventional ethanol reduces emissions by as much as 62 per cent compared to straight gasoline, cellulosic ethanol reduces emissions by 87 per cent and biodiesel reduces emissions bias much as 119 per cent compared to petroleum diesel.” READ MORE