Food v. Fuel Debate Worldwide

This week concerns were raised in the Tanzanian parliament that too much land is being set aside for production of crops for fuel rather than food.

An article in The Citizen newspaper revealed that 600,000 hectares of land suitable for food production had been earmarked for fuel crops.

The Citizen said that MPs were coming under pressure in parliament to halt the allocations of land and reverse the decision for areas that have already been set aside.

The paper said that Kilwa MP Hasanian Dewji had raised concerns that land was being granted to the Netherlands company Bio-Shape under 50 year leases.

"We should not let these investors have their own way without involving the local communities," he told The Citizen.

"We should be careful because in future we might experience the Zimbabwe land situation."

Meanwhile, at the University of California Berkley campus doubts about the impact of biofuels were also being raised by university academics.

According to the Daily Californian, Professor Daniel Kammen, whose research focuses on benefits of various biofuels and greenhouse costs, expressed hesitation about the viability of biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels.

"Biofuels are more problematic than several years ago," he said.

"While biofuels could be cheap, they could also threaten food supply or nature."

The Daily Californian added that professor Miguel Altieri of the environmental science policy management department called present-day use of biofuels "a tragedy for humankind."

Altieri added that biofuels expend resources in the forest and food crop areas, which forces people to choose between farming for food or for fuel.

The university is running 50 biofuel related projects and Prof Chris Somerville director of the institute told the Daily Californian that he recognised the criticisms of biofuels but the research was looking into cultivation of land not used for crops.

"We don't want to compete with food production," he said. "We're interested in the lands that are not considered suitable for agriculture. There's a lot of land like that. There's more than a billion acres of land worldwide."

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