Nestle warns biofuel boom threatens food supplies

Growing use of such crops as wheat and corn to make biofuels is putting world food supplies in peril, the head of Nestle, the world's biggest food and beverage company, warned on Sunday [23 Mar 2008]. "If as predicted we look to use biofuels to satisfy 20% of the growing demand for oil products, there will be nothing left to eat," chairman and chief executive Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said. "To grant enormous subsidies for biofuel production is morally unacceptable and irresponsible."

While the competition is driving up the price of maize, soya and wheat, land for cultivation is becoming rare and water sources are also under threat, Brabeck said. His remarks echoed concerns raised by the United Nations' independent expert on the right to food, Jean Ziegler. Speaking at the UN General Assembly last year, Ziegler called for a five-year moratorium on all initiatives to develop biofuels in order to avert what he said might be "horrible" food shortages.

- Business leaders of major corporations are starting to come out and speak about the threat of biofuels to the global food supply. We've had Shell talk about this earlier on and now it's Nestle. Recently, William Doyle, the CEO of Potash Corporation, a $47 billion fertilizer and feed products company said : "If you had any major upset where you didn't have a crop in a major growing agricultural region this year, I believe you'd see famine." The point being, the food supply chain is so tight that we've had 17 years of record-breaking harvests every single year and yet the supply is only barely keeping up to demand. This has led to record low inventory levels. There is no margin of error in the entire system, and biofuels such as ethanol are only making it worse. If there is any major disruption of any kind, there will be shortages and famine right away.

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