This briefing paper reviews evidence of the impacts of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) on food prices, with a focus on corn and soy, and presents new analysis on the impact of the RFS on U.S. livestock farmers. Studies examining the relationship between food prices and biofuel demand conclude …
Not long ago, the fledgling ethanol industry was the darling of investors, farmers, the federal government and a lot of Americans who liked the idea of turning corn into fuel. Suddenly, it doesn't have nearly as many friends. RISING PRICES: Is a bubble brewing in super-hot commodities markets? Rising global …
This publication highlights the importance of sustainable agriculture not only to preserve biodiversity, but also to ensure that will be able to feed the world, maintain agricultural livelihoods, and enhance human well being into the 21st century and beyond. At the same time, it seeks to highlight the importance of …
Energy expert and Planning Commission member, Kirit S. Parikh spoke to Outlook ... Excerpts: The debate over food versus fuel has made biofuel a dirty word... Internationally, biofuel has become a dirty word. But in India, I don't think it will become a dirty word. There are reasons for this. …
Fuel From The Fields: A Balance-Sheet What are biofuels? Made from renewable sources, biofuels promise a viable, eco-friendly substitute to fossil fuels. Can be made from a variety of crops like maize, sugarcane, beetroot, palm oil, jatropha-anything that is rich in sugar and carbohydrates. Typically, blended with petrol or diesel. …
US Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on Monday proposed freezing the federal mandate for corn-based ethanol at this year's level, contending that using so much grain for fuel was pressuring the food supply. Hutchison introduced legislation that would freeze the federal mandate for corn-based ethanol at 9 billion gallons. The Texas …
Prices of key food crops will fall significantly if the global community imposes a ban on crop-based production of biofuel, one of the key factors of recent food price increase, says a Washington-based research group. The price of maize will drop by 20 per cent, cassava by 14 per cent, …
Bio-fuel production in big economies of the world is the basic reason behind increase in prices of food commodities in international market, as the growers in Pakistan have also started taking interest in cultivating maize that is the basic raw material of bio-fuel. This was observed by Secretary of Food, …
Biofuel manufacturers at an international gathering in Spain have strenuously denied media charges they are driving up food prices and world hunger. As the world seeks sustainable energy supplies and ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, concern has grown that land used for plant-based fuels is competing with land for …
As a war of words rages over biofuels and their impact on world food supplies, researchers in India are promoting sweet sorghum as a crop that combines the best of both worlds. The plants, which grow three metres high in dry conditions, yield grain that can be eaten by people …
Rationing oil cannot address the larger issue Any proposal to ration oil in view of rising global crude prices could turn out to be a disaster. Imposing a formal allocation system to streamline supply and demand of petrol and diesel would, instead of resolving the problem, encourage hoarding and black-marketeering …
German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Brazil on Wednesday to adopt tougher environmental standards in producing biofuels but said rich nations needed to pay up to help protect rain forests and their biodiversity. Brazil is the world's largest exporter of ethanol, which it derives from sugar cane. Critics say increased production …
in the first week of April, thousands of people stormed the presidential palace in Haiti, throwing stones and demanding the resignation of President Rene Preval over soaring food prices. In reasonably prosperous Malaysia, the ruling coalition was nearly ousted by voters who cited food and fuel price increases as their …
In the first week of April, EU's Scientific Committee called for the suspension of the region's biofuel targets citing food crisis and unavailability of arable land. But on April 21, EU officials stated that the union stood by its target of getting 10 per cent of its road transport fuel …
Did the Nobel Prize committee make a mistake when it gave the 2007 Peace Prize to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and former us vice president Al Gore? I wonder. My disquiet is not because the prize recognized and put climate change at the centre of global debate. It …
Blame your biofuel fixation, not India and China, Bush is told LOGIC and empirical facts do not necessarily form a part of United States President George W. Bush's assertions. Five years ago, he went to war against Iraq to unearth weapons of mass destruction that weren't there. And now, in …
Myanmar is struggling to feed its people in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis -- in part because the regime has been forcing some farmers to stop growing rice in a plan to produce biofuel instead. In 2005 the military government's leader Than Shwe ordered a national drive to plant jatropha, …
A corn-like plant that can grow as high as an elephant's eye on some of Earth's driest farmland shows promise as a "smart" biofuel that won't cut into world food supplies, an agriculture expert said on Monday. Sweet sorghum, used in the United States mostly as animal feed, offers a …
A TEAM of scientists at the Fisheries College and Research Institute (FCRI) at Thoothukudi has successfully extracted bio-fuel from marine micro algae. The extraction of bio-fuel by standardising the research procedure from marine micro algae is a major breakthrough and the FCRI has planned to develop an industrial model for …
