MALNUTRITION: Uganda: UNICEF and the European Union combat malnutrition in drought-stricken Uganda

Jeremy Green
KARAMOJA, Uganda, 27 June 2011 – A passing herd of cattle is a common sight in Karamoja, where the sound of their hooves gets lost in the gusts of wind that carry dust far beyond the village limit.
This daily scene is a reminder of deeper issues that challenge this remote region in north-eastern Uganda. Here, swaths of arid, unproductive land and a culture of nomadic cattle herding have led to severe food shortages and devastating hunger.
Karamoja suffers from one the worst rates of malnutrition in the world. In 2010, 16 per cent of children under the age of five suffered from acute malnutrition, and nearly 40 per cent of children in this age group were underweight.
To tackle this critical problem, the European Union humanitarian aid department (ECHO), UNICEF and Action Against Hunger are working hand-in-hand with Uganda’s Ministry of Health, referral hospitals, health centres, and communities to integrate the treatment and prevention of malnutrition into routine health services.

 © UNICEF VIDEO In north-eastern Uganda’s remote, drought-stricken region of Karamoja, nearly 40 per cent of children under the age of five are underweight.

This effort, known as the Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition programme in Karamoja, or IMAM, is helping curb malnutrition in the region, and save children’s lives.

Fighting for survival
One-year old Lochoto Lochero and Francis Lokiru, 2, are both children whose lives have been saved due to IMAM interventions. Lochoto suffered from kwashiorkor, a common type of acute malnutrition caused by a lack of protein in a child’s diet. He developed skin rashes and oedema, and his body was swollen due to water retention.
Francis suffered from marasmus, a form of malnutrition caused by not having enough calories and protein for long periods of time. Francis’ little body was severely emaciated as a result of the condition.
When the two boys were admitted to hospital, their odds of survival were low. But after seven days of intensive medical and nutritional care, they both recovered and were able to return home.

 © UNICEF VIDEO :
The nurse at Moroto Health Centre in Karamoja, Uganda, gives Francis' mother plumpy nut, a high-protein peanut-based paste, that will help treat his acute malnutrition.

Weekly visits to the nearby health centre over the following weeks – part of the IMAM programme’s follow-up care – led to increased health and well-being for the boys. Just two weeks after returning home, Lochoto’s skin rash had almost disappeared and the swelling had gone down. Francis’ weight had increased to seven kilograms, and he was gaining energy and liveliness.
The IMAM programme reaches beneficiaries like Lochoto and Francis at home through the efforts of Village Health Teams, who track weekly progress and take anthropometric measurements.

Health teams on the go
In order to address the root causes of malnutrition, IMAM also includes training for the health teams to conduct health promotion activities with mothers on nutrition, food security, water and sanitation.
As more weeks pass, Francis’ appetite is getting better and his little body has gained more weight and energy. Lochoto’s skin is also looking healthier and his smile much bigger.

The VIDEO is well worth watching and is accessed through the website below:

UNICEF's Dheepa Pandian reports on efforts to reduce malnutrition in Uganda's remote Karamoja region. Watch in RealPlayer
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/uganda_59021.html

POVERTY: EU to help Viet Nam reduce poverty

July, 02 2011

HA NOI — The European Delegation to Viet Nam yesterday announced that it had disbursed a total of 29 million euros (US$41million) in grants to support poverty reduction in Viet Nam.
Emmanuel Mersch, the EU's charge d'affaires, said that the disbursement corresponded with the EU Delegation's ongoing support of two development programmes in Viet Nam, both of which ended in 2010. Viet Nam's Socio Economic Development Plan (SEDP) in the period of 2006-10 received 17 million euros while the remaining 12 million euros went to support Programme 135 Phase II (period of 2006-10), which supported the socio-economic development of communes and villages in mountainous and ethnic minority areas.
According to Tran Thuy Dung, an official with the EU's collaboration and development committee who was directly involved with supporting peverty reduction programme 135, the delay of the disbursement was due to the unstable macroeconomy in Viet Nam last year which had not satisfied the EU donor's conditions for the grant. "Results from the International Monetary Fund released in the middle of June however showed that Viet Nam had recently carried out proper policies to stabilise the macroeconomy and efficiently control public finance management," she said.
The Poverty Reduction Support Credit (PRSC) is the general budget support mechanism used by all donors in Viet Nam. Under the PRSC, the EU and other development partners have been working with the Government to improve the content of important policies, particularly in the area of health, education, gender and public finance management, to ensure timely adoption of these policies and to monitor their impact on broader development objectives.
Disbursement of 17 million euros ( around $24.6million) takes account of the clear progress in policy reform made by the Vietnamese authorities in key areas, such as the introduction of internal audit legislation to improve public financial management, the establishment of national standards and a unified licensing system for health care practitioners, providing guiding legislation for the domestic violence law, and introducing a legal framework on consumer protection.
The remaining 12 million euros is the single instalment of the Raising the living standards of ethnic minorities in Vietnam, an agreement signed between the EU and Vietnamese Government in October last year.
Emmanuel Mersch said in the years to 2013, the EU Delegation was planning an additional 150 million euros ($212m) grant support to poverty reduction and the health sector. "However such budget support will only be possible if public financial management modernisation is steadily pursued and a stable macroeconomic environment is maintained," he added. — VNS
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Social-Isssues/212933/EU-to-help-Viet-Nam-reduce-poverty.html

MALNUTRITION: DRC: European Union grants 9.9m euros aid

Brussels, Belgium - The European Union (EU) has decided to release an emergency humanitarian aid of 9.9 million euros to cater for children suffering from malnutrition in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an official source told PANA here. According to a communique issued Wednesday by the European Commission services in Brussels, the funds will serve in providing assistance to the Congolese children under five, suffering from severe malnutrition. 'These funds will serve for financing projects aimed at delivering to those children the treatment required for their survival, whether it be food rations or medical care,' the communique indicated. The European Union said humanitarian aid meant for children completes the longer-term development aid and helps the country to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aimed at reducing hunger, poverty, as well as child and maternal mortality.
Official reports indicated that out of 1,000 babies born in DRC, 158 die before five.
According to the reports, despite some progress achieved these last years in the fight against malnutrition in the country, the malnutrition rate remains higher than two per cent in the western provinces of the country.
http://www.afriquejet.com/news/africa-news/european-union-grants-9.9m-euros-aid-to-drc-2011042810230.html

POVERTY: Home-grown nutrition research for Africa

JOHANNESBURG, 21 April 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN
A more suitable choice of nutrition intervention in the offing?

A group of international academic institutions and an NGO backed by the European Union (EU) have launched Sustainable Nutrition Research for Africa in the Years to come, or SUNRAY, to develop a nutrition agenda for Africa, with specific emphasis on the 34 sub-Saharan countries.
"We want to make sure nutrition interventions in the next 10-15 years - when Africa faces potential environmental changes which will impact on nutrition - are sustainable, driven by African countries, and their priorities are not pre-defined by donors," said Carl Lachat, a researcher at the Belgium-based Institute for Tropical Medicine, one of the participating institutions.
A recent study by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a US-based think-tank, found that in another two decades the effect of climate change on food production could drive child malnutrition up by 20 percent.
The two-year SUNRAY project has invited proposals for working papers from African researchers to review the relationship between nutrition and climate change; the influence of rising food prices; the future availability of water; social dynamics in households, and the effect of rapid urbanization, among other themes in order to identify the specific research needs for nutrition in these areas.

Research in Africa
Proposals for working papers will be assessed by academics at four universities in sub-Saharan Africa: North-West University in South Africa; Sokoine University in Tanzania; the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin; and Makerere University in Uganda.
"South Africa plays in a different league in terms of research when compared to the rest of Africa, but our research is more influenced by Western concepts, so if you are to look at good home-grown research pertaining to local foodstuffs, Nigeria and Kenya are a lot more advanced," said Prof Annamarie Kruger, director of the Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research at North-West University.
We now have an opportunity to develop interventions suited for African conditions and we have a say in our agenda ... it is not like we are doing research for European driven projects
"This project is very attractive in the sense that we now have an opportunity to develop interventions suited for African conditions and we have a say in our agenda; we also know the gaps that need to be addressed - it is not like we are doing research for European driven projects."
Lachat pointed out that the backing of the EU meant rich countries are calling for African involvement in setting the priorities for nutrition research and funding.
Proposals for the project are being accepted by 22 April, with the first of a series of workshops with the authors being held later in 2011.
Ahead of the workshops, the collaborating institutions intend holding discussions with nutritionists, researchers, businesspeople in the food sector, and policy makers in seven African countries - Benin, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Togo and Tanzania.
Lachat said they realized that political backing was critical to ensure the research made the journey from paper to the real world, so "we are involving African political leaders in the initiative."
The project will produce a roadmap document summarising research priorities, strengths and gaps, resource requirements, opportunities for linkage and support between African and Northern institutions, or synergies between existing initiatives and research in other sectors.
Only nine of the 46 countries in sub-Saharan Africa are on track to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92550

MALNUTRITION: GM crops to be allowed into Britain

 Jamie Doward The Observer, Sunday 6 February 2011
GM crops to be allowed into Britain under controversial EU plansUK to back imports of animal feed with traces of GM crops in move to benefit US exporters
 Photograph: Martin Argles for the Observer

The decision to allow feed containing traces of GM crops into the UK is likely to alarm environmentalists who have long resisted such imports.

Genetically modified crops will be allowed to enter the UK food chain without the need for regulatory clearance for the first time under controversial plans expected to be approved this week.
The Observer understands that the UK intends to back EU plans permitting the importing of animal feed containing traces of unauthorised GM crops in a move that has alarmed environmental groups.
Importing animal feed containing GM feed must at present be authorised by European regulators. But a vote on Tuesday in favour of the scheme put forward by the EU's standing committee on the food chain and animal health would overturn the EU's "zero tolerance" policy towards the import of unauthorised GM crops.
The move would mark a significant victory for the GM lobby, which has pushed for a relaxation of the blanket ban for years.Environmental groups claim the GM industry wants to use the presence of unauthorised organisms in animal feed as part of a wider strategy to promote its technology.
"The GM industry is pushing this proposal so it can wedge its foot firmly in the door and open up the British and European markets to food no one wants to eat," said Helen Wallace, director of GeneWatch UK, which campaigns against GM food. "Its long-term aim is to contaminate the food chain to such an extent that GM-free food will disappear."
Relaxing the EU's zero-tolerance position would greatly benefit US feed exporters. The push for Europe to drop its zero-tolerance policy began in 2009 after EU authorities found traces of GM maize in soy shipments from the US and refused to allow its entry. Such recalls are expensive and those affected are unlikely to receive compensation.
GM supporters warn that the current zero-tolerance policy could result in a dramatic shortage of feed for livestock. But critics dismiss the claims as scaremongering and say there is no evidence to back up them up.
"This is a solution without a problem, and the price could be very high indeed when unknown genetically modified organisms are let loose in the food chain," said Eve Mitchell, food policy adviser at Food and Water Europe, a campaign group.
"Rather than ignoring EU food safety laws to help the US soy industry cut costs, we should simply buy the stuff from countries that segregate their GM properly. If it hasn't been tested, why eat it?"
Many of the GM crops, notably soy and maize, that have been found in animal feed imported into Europe are resistant to multiple herbicides. Critics blame these new GM crops for the recent rise of "super weeds" across vast tracts of the US farm belt.
Friends of the Earth Europe said it had obtained expert legal advice questioning the legality of the EU's plan. But European regulators believe that allowing the import of animal feed containing no more than 0.1% of GM traces does not jeopardise food security.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/06/genetically-modified-crops-uk

MALNUTRITION: MoPHP, EU and UNICEF Launch Project to Increase Food Security in Yemen

Yemen Post Staff
A three-year project to contribute to poverty reduction and increased food security among rural households in Yemen has been launched by the Ministry of Public Health & Population (MoPHP), in cooperation with the Delegation of the European Union and UNICEF. The 5.8 million Euro project aims to prevent and mitigate malnutrition among children under five and pregnant and lactating mothers. The European Union has provided EUR 4.8 million and UNICEF will contribute the remainder.
“This project addresses the problem of acute malnutrition, which is chronic among children under five in Yemen,” said Yemen’s Minister of Health, Dr. Abdul Karim Yehia Rasae. “We will work to build the capacity of doctors, health workers and community volunteers to detect and treat malnutrition.”
The project will work to strengthen capacities at central and governorate levels in the management of nutrition programmes, promote and support exclusive breastfeeding, improve complementary feeding practices and expand services for the treatment of moderate and severe acute malnutrition.
“No child should bear the consequences of malnutrition,” said Michele Cervone d’Urso, Ambassador of the European Union to Yemen, “but in Yemen, too many children are already suffering and many more are at risk. This project aims to address that. The EU contribution to this project is part of a sustained support for the food security sector in Yemen, which has exceeded EUR 50 million."
“Malnutrition is one of the main underlying causes of death for children in Yemen,” said UNICEF Representative Geert Cappelaere. “Therefore it is essential to address it at multiple levels, including supporting household food security, changing existing feeding practices and providing minimum basic health and nutrition services.”
UNICEF will be responsible for coordination and implementation of the project, in close collaboration with the MoPHP.
http://yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=3&SubID=3043&MainCat=3

POVERTY: Is the Doha round delivering on poverty?

  Photo: Nicolas Boll/BioCotton Project; Cotton farmers in developing countries at a disadvantage

JOHANNESBURG, 20 January 2011 (IRIN) - Scepticism marked discussions at a just-ended global poverty summit in Johannesburg on whether the Doha Development Round of negotiations at the World Trade Organization could help reduce the number of poor people in developing countries.
The Doha talks, which began in 2001, are aimed at reducing barriers to market access throughout the world, with the development of poor countries at the heart of their agenda. They look at three main sectors - agriculture, intellectual property and services.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram, the assistant secretary-general of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs and a leading Malaysian economist, said it had been extremely difficult to measure any socio-economic benefits of such access.
He said studies in his country had shown that a paddy farmer’s child had better nutrition than the children of a rubber farmer who now had access to global markets.
Improving income levels did not automatically imply better lives for the poor in any country, as other factors such as the implementation of policies that benefit the poor within countries matter a lot more, said Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize-winning economist and chair of the Brooks World Poverty Institute, the organizers of the Johannesburg summit.
He cited the USA as an example of where gross domestic product had grown substantially but not filtered down to the poor, who were worse off than a decade ago. "It [high economic growth levels] had a trickle-up effect," said Stiglitz.

Subsidies
Over the past decade the Doha talks have failed to get developed countries to stop subsidizing their farmers and agricultural exports, something that directly threatens livelihoods and food security in the developing countries.
While some European Union (EU) countries have abolished or reduced agricultural subsidies, the USA has not. It reintroduced subsidies for cotton farmers in 2008, pointed out Bernard Hoekman, an international trade expert at the World Bank, severely affecting cotton farmers in West African countries like Benin, Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso.
The Johannesburg summit called for the rapid elimination of export subsidies, especially for cotton, sugar, groundnuts, dairy products and fish.
Sundaram said sub-Saharan Africa did not stand to benefit from the Doha talks. He pointed out that many least developed countries (LDCs), most of them in Africa, lacked the capacity to compete in the global market.
Experts at the Johannesburg summit said Bangladesh and Cambodia were among the few LDCs to build a competitive edge - in their textile and clothing sectors.

LDCs are seeking duty and quota-free (DFQF) access to markets in developed countries at the Doha talks. “In practice, many advanced and emerging market economies have agreed to allow DFQF market access for LDC products under at least 97 percent of tariff lines. While the difference between 97 percent and 100 percent may seem insignificant, many LDCs export so few product categories that even a small number of exclusions can sharply limit the benefits of trade preference programs,” says the International Monetary Fund.
The Johannesburg summit called for the setting up of an annual reporting mechanism on DFQF.

Fishing
The Doha talks are also discussing EU fishing industry subsidies which encourage European fishing beyond Europe - something that adversely affects the millions of African fishermen, said the World Bank's Hoekman. "If those subsidies are removed it will prevent overfishing, benefiting the poor fishing communities along the African coast and the environment."
The Johannesburg summit also called for improvements in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to ease restrictions on labour mobility from LDCs in order to boost such sectors as health, education and call centres.

Not all doom
The Doha talks have made progress in some areas, for instance Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which provides minimum standards for intellectual property protection in sectors such as music and medicine, and led to the introduction of greater flexibility in the manufacture of drugs for public health services.
Also under Doha, the EU was forced to abolish preferential access to banana exporters in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries - benefiting LDCs which have preferential access under the EU's Everything But Arms regulation, said Hoekman.
The Johannesburg summit warned, however, that “the length of time that the [Doha] negotiations have taken threatens to render aspects of the agenda obsolete."
But now is the time to push for a conclusion on outstanding issues, said Hoekman, as the US Farm Bill, which covers agriculture subsidies and food aid, comes up for review in 2012.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?Reportid=91684

MALNUTRITION: Farmers warned of abolition of agricultural subsidies -- Environment secretary Caroline Spelman calls for Cap reform to tackle 'global food security' and an end to direct pay-outs

Press Association The Guardian, 5 January 2011

 Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian: European market support for UK agriculture, including the arable sector, is set to diminish over the next three years.
The environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, will today call for fundamental reform of the European system of subsidies for farmers.
Landowners who take steps to protect the environment and enhance the countryside should get more rewards, Spelman will say, suggesting that there should be less reliance on giving Britain's farmers direct payments.
Addressing the three-day Oxford Farming Conference, which began yesterday, Spelman will tell farmers that rising global demand for food and increases in food prices make it possible to reduce subsidies and "plan for their abolition".
The subsidy system keeps food prices high, causing high tariffs that block cheap imports. Use of subsidies to export surplus food from the EU also damages production in developing countries. The distortion of trade caused by the common agricultural policy, or Cap, is "morally wrong", Spelman says. The Cap, which governs subsidies across the EU, is to be reviewed, with a new scheme put in place by 2014.
Spelman says that she wants the European commission's plans for reform to be more ambitious.
She says: "We need to make the new Cap fundamentally different. It must be about the new challenges of achieving global food security and tackling and adapting to a changing climate. Now is the time to make very significant progress towards reducing our reliance on direct payments. Rising global demand for food and rising food prices make it possible to reduce subsidies and plan for their abolition.
"Furthermore, we should encourage innovation in the industry, and provide help with environmental measures and combating climate change. Our taxpayers have every right to expect other public goods for the subsidies they pay."
She will also tell the farming conference she wants to see an end to export bans, such as the ban on grain exports from Russia imposed last summer by Putin's government following domestic drought, which contributed to higher world grain prices.
A new government approach to farming, giving more power to local organisations, and encouraging greater collaboration in the development of policy, will also be revealed by the secretary of state.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/05/farmers-agricultural-subsidies-spelman

POVERTY: EU biofuels target could starve millions of people

15 February 2010
Millions of people could starve if member states deliver on the EU’s target of sourcing 10% of its transport fuel from biofuels as a way of tackling climate change, argues a new report from ActionAid, an NGO.
Background
In December 2008, EU leaders reached agreement on a new Renewable Energy Directive, which requires each member state to satisfy 10% of its transport fuel needs from renewable sources, including biofuels, hydrogen and green electricity, by 2020 (see EurActiv LinksDossier).
However, concerns have been raised that increased biofuel production would result in massive deforestation and have severe implications for food security, as energy crops replace other land uses (so-called 'indirect land-use change').
International development and environment groups have condemned the EU target and called on the bloc both to abandon the 10% target and dismantle related support measures to avoid making millions more go hungry.
The huge expansion in industrial biofuels use must be stopped," said ActionAid's biofuels expert Tim Rice, calling for EU governments to refrain from increasing their use further while drafting national action plans for renewable energy for the next 10 years.
Currently made from maize, wheat, sugar cane and oil seeds such as palm oil, soy and rapeseed, industrial biofuels compete with crops grown for food, "driving food prices higher and affecting what and how much people eat in developing countries," notes the ActionAid report on the impact of industrial biofuels on global hunger.
"For every 1% rise in the price of food, 16 million more poor people are made hungry," it estimates.
According to ActionAid's evaluation, EU biofuel consumption will "jump nearly fourfold" by 2020, and two thirds of these biofuels will be imported mainly from the developing world, diverting food away from millions more people who need it most.
Landgrab
Industrial biofuels are also having "disastrous local impacts" on land rights in many of the communities where they are grown, notes the report.
"The scale of the current land grab is astonishing," ActionAid argues. The survey shows that in five African countries, areas the size of Belgium (1.1 million hectares) have been given over to industrial biofuel cultivation, all of which is destined for export.
According to the survey, EU companies have acquired or requested areas of land greater than the size of Denmark (over five million hectares) for cultivating industrial biofuels in developing countries.
Industrial biofuels: Climate change 'red herring'
While EU legislation establishes sustainability criteria for biofuels (currently in the making) and obliges the bloc to ensure that biofuels offer at least 35% carbon emission savings compared to fossil fuels, 60% as of 2018, ActionAid notes that "most industrial biofuels do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions when compared to the fossil fuels they are replacing" (EurActiv 05/12/08, 03/02/10).
Industrial biofuels are "a red herring in the fight against climate change," it continues, stressing their contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Land-use change from converting forests and grasslands to grow biofuel crops is an important cause of GHG emissions and using fertilisers to grow them releases nitrous oxide, which the NGO stresses is 300 times more powerful as a GHG than CO2.
http://www.euractiv.com/en/cap/biofuels-fuel-hunger-ngo-warns

POVERTY: Forced use of biofuels could hit food production

John Vidal 9 November 2010 Forced use of biofuels could hit food production, EU warnedArea the size of Ireland could be lost to conventional farming as global warming accelerates, says environmental study

Making European motorists use more biofuel could actually increase carbon emissions and force up food prices, hitting the world's poorest the hardest, says the IEEP report

Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Plans to make European motorists use more biofuels could take an area the size of Ireland out of food production by 2020 and accelerate climate change, a study has found.
The report by the independent Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) is based on plans that countries have submitted to the EU detailing how they intend to meet their legal requirement to include 10% of renewable energy in all transport fuels by 2020.
IEEP calculations suggest that the indirect effect of the switch will be to take between 4.1m and 6.9m hectares out of food production. In addition, say the authors, opening up land to compensate for the food taken out of production will lead to between 27m and 56m tonnes of additional CO2 emissions, the equivalent of putting nearly 26m more cars on the road.
The study says European countries have chosen to meet the EU renewable energy targets by importing so-called first generation biofuels from African countries or from Indonesia and Brazil, rather than by promoting the use of advanced biofuels, electric vehicles or energy efficiency to reduce the environmental impact of transport.
"The renewable energy directive was adopted to help combat climate change, however, through promoting the use of conventional biofuels with no consideration of indirect land use change impacts it has the potential to actually increase the EU's greenhouse gas emissions.
"It is vital that this situation is rectified and these impacts are urgently addressed within EU law," said David Baldock, director of IEEP.
Development groups which commissioned the report said the effect of the EU legislation would be felt around the world and urged the EU to drop the 10% biofuels goal.
"Making space for biofuel production will force other farming activity in producer countries deeper into forests," said a spokesman for ActionAid. "This displacement of farming activity will cause loss of wildlife habitats, and carbon dioxide emissions – as well as increasing food prices, hitting some of the world's poorest people hardest."
Friends of the Earth's biofuels campaigner, Kenneth Richter, said: "Using more biodiesel in our cars won't help to green transport – this research shows that when the full impact of their production is taken into account, biofuels cause more emissions than the fossil fuels they replace."
"Trees will be cleared, wetlands will be under threat and a range of species will be pushed to the brink if these proposals go ahead," said RSPB director of international operations Tim Stowe.
Europe's move to biofuels compares with a 7.6% target by 2022 in the US. Last week the US agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, said a further $500m (£310m) would be made available in subsidies to grow biofuel crops over the next 15 years. Most of the money would go to extracting fuel from non-food plants.
ActionAid claimed this year that European biofuel targets could result in up to 100 million more hungry people, increased food prices and landlessness.
The United Nations has singled out biofuel demand as a major factor in what it estimates will be as much as a 40% increase in food prices over the coming decade.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/09/more-biofuels-could-hit-fuel-production