Hunger in Philippines to rice as gov’t prioritizes fuel over food

Environmental activists today warned of ” hunger rates hitting near-famine levels if the Arroyo administration continues to prioritize fuel over food by aggressively promoting the massive conversion of agricultural lands into plantations for biofuel production .”

Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE) sounded the alarm after the recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) surveys again indicated a record-high peak in national hunger rates, where 3.8-million families (21.5 percent) experienced “involuntary hunger” at least once in the last three months. This figure is higher than the hunger rates recorded in November 2006 and February 2007.

” It’s ironic that millions of Filipino families have literally nothing to eat, while millions of hectares are being cordoned off by the government to grow crops for fuel,” Kalikasan PNE National Coordinator Clemente Bautista Jr. Bautista said today in a statement.

“The current administration is auctioning off more and more agriculturally-productive lands as prime lots to biofuels investors and foreign mining giants. This only means that there will be even less land for Filipino farmers to grow food,” Bautista said.

“We demand that the Arroyo administration quit sacrificing Philippine food security over a few sweet biofuels deals it has entered into. The administration is apparently greenwashing its anti-people projects while neglecting the issue of food security for the Filipino people ,” Bautista said.

Bautista noted that in addition to such controversial contracts with foreign firms such as the NBN ZTE deal, the Arroyo administration and local bioethanol producers also signed four joint venture deals with Chinese partners for domestic bioethanol production involving hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural lands.

These include the (a) MOAs between the Nanning Yongkai Industry Group and B.M. SB Integrated Biofuels Company on joint venture to establish bioethanol plants in the country, (b) MOA between China National Constructional and Agricultural Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CAMCE) and Palawan Bio-Energy Development Corp, (c) MOA between One Cagayan Resource Development Center Inc. and the Nanning Yongkai Industry Group to develop bio-ethanol plants that would each have a capacity to produce at least 150,000 liters a day, and (d) Memorandum of Agreement Negros Southern Integrated Biofuels Company and Nanning Yong Kai Industry Group Co., Ltd.

Bautista also noted that the state-run Philippine National Oil Co.-Alternative Fuels Corp. (PNOC-AFC), which was revitalized in 2006 to accelerate the utilization and commercialization of alternative fuels in the country, is eyeing some 1.2 million hectares of land in Mindanao for a P5-P10 billion jatropha production project.

“The current hunger rates recorded by the SWS are already alarming. We in Kalikasan PNE are alarmed because in the next few years, even less land will be made available for food to feed Filipino families because these will be reserved for biodiesel crop production ,” Bautista said.

Bautista said that biofuels production was an inadequate environmental response if it would only generate grave domino effects on biodiversity, agricultural production, and the people’s food security.

“A balance between food and biofuel production must be attained. However, it is hard to imagine the Arroyo administration of being capable of this vision. As many of its controversial deals such as the NBN ZTE deal shows, our current government officials being interested in the kickbacks and windfalls of projects rather than in their long-term and widespread benefit to the people ,” Bautista said. ###

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