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By Darwin G. Amojelar Reporter
THE Asian Development Bank (ADB)
on Thursday warned that the rising demand for biofuels in countries
like the Philippines would lead to higher food prices.
“Soaring energy prices are
pushing demand for biofuels which in turn is driving food prices
skyward,” Lawrence Greenwood, ADB vice-president, said.
Biofuels refer to bioethanol and
biodiesel and other fuels made from biomass and other organic,
predominantly, plant sources.
“We are cautiously optimistic
and somewhat concerned on the biofuel trends around the world. It
would drive food prices up,” Joachim von Braun, director
general of the International Food Policy Research Institute said.
He projected prices of food to
increase about 40 percent to 80 percent from the current levels.
Braun said China has shut down
some of its ethanol manufacturing plants owing to concern that the
industry’s demand for raw materials has fueled record-high grain
prices.
In the Philippines, the Biofuels
Act of 2006 mandates the increasing use of biofuel to reduce the
country’s dependence on costlier imported crude and cut down on
its greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas is believed responsible
for the recent and sudden shift in climate conditions, as can be
seen from the scorching temperatures and massive floods in North
America and Europe.
The ADB also called on the
Philippine government to raise investments in the farm sector to
reduce rural poverty.
“More investments in the
agriculture sector in the Philippines is key to lowering poverty
incidence,” Greenwood told reporters during a regional conference.
He said the Philippines should
take its cue from countries like China, whose economic success was
based on policy reforms that stimulated high growth rates in
agriculture, allowing farmers to sell their surplus in the open
market.
“In virtually all cases,
agricultural growth was the precursor to the acceleration of
nonagricultural growth, very much in the way agricultural
revolutions predated the industrial revolutions that spread across
Europe and beyond in the late 18th and 19th centuries,” he added.
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