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By Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo, Reporter
EXPERTS blamed the current record prices of rice
and other grains on factors other than the rising use of biofuels.
In the recently held Bioenergy Forum 2008, a
special panel gathered to address the role of energy in food
security said speculators, extreme weather conditions, rapid
expansion of the Chinese and Indian economies and population growth,
among others, were responsible for the current surge in food prices.
The forum held in Bangkok brought together 94
researchers, academicians, policy makers, biofuel stakeholders, oil
companies, and agronomists from the Austria, France, India,
Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand,
the United Kingdom, and the US.
It tackled growing questions about the wisdom of
pursuing biofuels in light of skyrocketing prices of rice and other
food crops that have been tapped as alternative sources of energy.
While the use of biofuels may be part of the
problem, the experts said that other factors loom larger.
To address this dilemma of conflicting use of
food crops, the special panel proposed that countries use wastes and
biomass as feedstock for biofuels, introduce high yield varieties of
crops that can be used to make ethanol and biodiesel, and promote
the use of non-food feedstocks such as jatropha and sweet sorghum.
The same forum also cited the Philippines’
Biofuels Act of 2006, which mandates the blending of coco-biodiesel
and fuel-ethanol in regular fuel to cut the country’s oil import
bill.
Aside from the Philippines, Thailand is also
looking at biofuels amid the soaring price of oil in the world
market, by implementing a mandatory blend of 10 percent palm-biodiesel
in diesel (B10) and 10 percent ethanol in gasoline (E10) by the year
2012.
Thailand’s national oil company PTT, has
already taken the lead by offering gasohol (5 percent ethanol
blended with gasoline) and B5 (5 percent palm-biodiesel blended with
diesel) nationwide in most of their stations.
Taiwan and Korea have also started the mandatory
blending of biodiesel in diesel on a national scale.
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