Does growing crops for biofuel cause famine and high food prices?
Things are never that simple. We already grow cash crops around the world that take valuable agricultural land away from the locals. They grow flowers in Nigeria so we can get cheap flowers in our supermarkets. We eat chocolate made from cocoa beans grown in countries such as Niger, one of the poorest nations on earth. They grow strawberries in Morocco which has barely enough land to feed its own population. We already affect famine and food prices. Biofuel is just another cash crop. Maybe the moral question is to ask whether we should grow any cash crops when nations are starving to death and dying from lack of water while big business grows thousands of acres of flowers or cocoa beans for the rich West. And if we should, which is better, chocolate or biofuel? Biofuels, on their own, do not put up food prices – our overseas policy does. And don’t forget there is more land growing tobacco than biofuel. Besides, we only support the use of WVO – a waste product.
