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08 September 2010 at 18:30 IST
EU may drop biofuel plan as pressure mounts
BRUSSELS (Commodity Online) : The European Union is yet to make a decision on its biofuel policy to produce 10 per cent of all transport fuels from biofuels by 2020.
Many environmentalist groups have urged the EU to drop their biofuels targets or else risk plunging more Africans into hunger and raising carbon emissions.
Friends of the Earth (FoE), an UK group, in its report said that the key to halting the land-grab is for EU countries to drop a goal to produce 10% of all transport fuels from biofuels by 2020.
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The charity group accuses European companies of land-grabbing throughout Africa to grow biofuel crops that directly compete with food crops.
FoE has added its voice to an NGO lobby that claims local communities are not properly consulted and that forests are being cleared in a pattern that echoes decades of exploitation of other natural resources in Africa.
However, the report's findings are challenged by companies who argue that they typically farm land not destined or suitable for food crops.
The FoE report concentrates on 11 African countries, including Kenya and Tanzania, where it says that around 40 foreign owned companies have invested in agro-fuel developments.
The FoE report estimates that a third of the land sold or acquired in Africa is intended for fuel crops - some 5 million hectares.
As scientists and international institutions challenge the climate benefits of this alternative fuel source, local communities and in some cases national governments are waking up to the impact of land grabs on the environment and on local livelihoods.
In Tanzania, Madagascar and Ghana, there have already been protests following land grabs by foreign companies.
Companies have been accused of providing misleading information to local farmers, of obtaining land from fraudulent community landowners and of bypassing environmental protection laws.
Agrofuels are competing with food crops for farmland, and agrofuel development companies are competing with farmers for access to that land.
And this appears to be as much the case for jatropha, as for other crops, despite the claim that it grows on non-agricultural land.
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