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ENVIRONMENTAL activists warn 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 .”
The 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.
“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. said 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 antipeople projects, while neglecting the issue of food security
for the Filipino people,” Bautista said.
Bautista noted that besides contracts with
foreign firms such as the controversial 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 memorandum of agreement (MOA)
between the Nanning Yongkai Industry Group and B.M. SB Integrated
Biofuels Company on joint venture to establish bioethanol plants in
the country; China National Constructional and Agricultural
Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CAMCE) and Palawan
Bio-Energy Development Corp.; One Cagayan Resource Development
Center Inc. and the Nanning Yongkai Industry Group to develop
bioethanol plants that would each have a capacity to produce at
least 150,000 liters a day; and between Negros Southern Integrated
Biofuels Company and Nanning Yong Kai Industry Group Co., Ltd.
Bautista also noted that the revitalized
state-run Philippine National Oil Co.-Alternative Fuels Corp. (PNOC-AFC),
aimed at commercializing alternative fuels, 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.
Biofuels production is an inadequate
environmental response if it would only generate grave domino
effects on biodiversity, agricultural production, and the people’s
food security, said Bautista.
“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. Controversial deals
such as the NBN-ZTE shows our current government officials are
interested in the kickbacks and windfalls of projects, rather than
in long-term and widespread benefit,” decried Bautista.
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