STWR - Share The World's Resources

28th October 07, The Hindu

Seeking a five-year moratorium on use of bio-fuels, an independent United Nations human rights expert has warned that the effect of converting staple foods into fuels would be "absolutely catastrophic" for the poor nations which import food.

The argument for bio-fuels is legitimate in terms of energy efficiency and combating climate change but such a course would result in increase in the prices of wheat, maize, sugar, land and water, putting food out of the reach of the poor, he said.

Noting that the price of wheat has doubled in one year, Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, told reporters here on Friday that the poorest countries will not be able to import enough food for their people if this trend is not reversed.

"It is a crime against humanity to convert agricultural productive soil into soil which produces food stuff that will be burned into bio-fuel," he asserted.

Ziegler argued that bio-fuels will only lead to further hunger in a world where an estimated 854 million people, one out of six, already suffer from the scourge, 100,000 people die from hunger or its immediate consequences every day, and every five seconds, a child dies from hunger.

All of this takes place, he added, in a world that already produces enough food to feed every child, woman and man and could feed 12 billion people, double the current world population.

"All causes of hunger are man-made, it's a problem of access, not overpopulation or underproduction, and can be changed by human decision," he stated.

Ziegler also called for measures to protect refugees who flee hunger, famine and starvation in their own countries, and are treated like criminals when they attempt to cross into other countries.

He noted that from 1972 to 2002, the number of gravely undernourished people in Africa increased from 81 million to 202 million, and every day hundreds of Africans "take to the sea" fleeing from hunger.

He called on the UN Human Rights Council "to declare a new human right" to protect those who flee from hunger.

The right to food is defined as "the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensures a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear," Ziegler explained.

"This human right is gravely violated in many, many parts of the world," he regretted.

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