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GENEVA: Biofuels are not only hurting poor consumers in Asia by
driving up crop prices, they are also failing to help the region’s
farmers who have not been able to adapt their production to cash in
on the boom, a United Nations report said on Thursday.
“Poor rural farmers have yet to see the
benefits of biofuel production. They lack the wherewithal to extend
their land and adapt to new crops. And the impetus for large-scale
farming can push the poor off their land, excluding them from
biofuels,” it said.
“Small poor farmers in particular, have been
left behind,” UN Conference on Trade and Development economist
Cape Kasahara told reporters in Geneva.
The rise of biofuels has come under fire with
Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Wednesday criticizing
countries like the United States for diverting farm products to
produce biofuels, saying this had led to soaring global food prices.
Food giant Nestle’s chief executive Peter
Brabeck also said earlier that the growing use of crops such as
wheat and corn in making biofuels is putting world food supplies in
peril.
The UN report noted that the sector has the
potential to lower oil prices as well as provide higher demand for
farmers, but urged governments to “carefully consider the impact
on the poor.”
The report also called for a “revolution” in
the agriculture sector, saying that it could lift 218 million people
living across the Asia-Pacific region out of poverty.
Urging for fresh attention on the sector, which
employs 60 percent of the region’s workers, the UN’s report said
that raising average agricultural labor productivity is needed.
“Decades of neglect have weakened the
sector’s capacity to cut poverty and inequality. Growth and
productivity in agriculture have stalled, and the green revolution
that boosted agricultural yields in the 1970s has bypassed
millions,” said the report.
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