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In praise of bio-fuel

Every year Bangladesh spends about $2 billion to import oil, 15% of total national budget. Through bio-fuel production, Bangladesh can save half of its foreign currency from avoided oil import and can allocate the savings to the other sectors of the economy.

Md. Abdul Baten
THE current endeavours for reform have been obstructed by the uncontrolled rise in the price of essential commodities. Some haw defined it as a "hidden famine." However, everybody will agree that this cur rent situation has been aggravated by simultaneous effect of recent world-wide food crisis and continu -ous increased trendof oil price.
Any increase in oil price significantly increases production and transportation cost, and price rise become unavoidable. It is therefore argued that poor countries like Bangladesh should explore alternative renewable energy sources that will reduce their dependance on imported oil. Bio-fuel would be a sustainable solution in this regard. In most global energy scenarios that meet stringent carbon emissions constraints, biofuel is assumed to be a significant
new source of energy.
The world oil price is rising geometrically. Among tire world's poorest countries, 38 are net importers of oil (Bangladesh is one of them), some now having spent more than six times their health budget on oil importing. Moreover, they are mostly affected by climate change, consequences of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions from fossil furl. It is therefore a growing need to curb emission of greenhouse gases. Biofuel with its low carbon emission potentiality would be an alternative energy solution, many scientists believe.
Bio-fuel is a non-traditional energy source produced from dry organic matter or combustible oils from plants by a conventional way of sugar from cane, maize or other oil containing seeds then the parallel fermentation and distillation. It can be used blended with traditional petroleum-based disel oil or
directly as ethanol.
However, debate is mounting based on the idea that bio-fuel has tied oil and food prices in a ways that could profoundly upset the relationship between producers, consumers, and nations in the years ahead, with potentially devastating implications for both global poverty and food security.
But advocates for bio-fuel are not small in number. They believe that bio-fuel will reduce uncertainity of implementing development budget of most oilimporting poor countries that most often have to cut their development budget due to increase in oil price and become dependant on foreign loan to implement national budget.
Many supporters of bio-fuel from developing countries argue that bio-fuels will be a blessing for tropical developing countries like Bangladesh because of our comparative advantages of sun and excel-
lent energy crops. Modern distilleries might both facilitate electrification in remote areas and also create more jobs, thereby making develop -ing countries serious players in the global market.
It has been argued that only to avert such a potential shift in the global market, the developed countries, who control 90% of global trade at present, have started debate on bio-fuel through their powerful media.
If bio-fuel changes the whole pientre of oil politics then the US's absolute control over the world will be weakened. Moreover, if the dcvel oping countries shift their present fossil fuel-based carbon intensive energy use to less carbon intensive bio-fuels, then pressure will mount on US to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, as now they deny it by blaming developing countries for not reducing their carbon emissions.
Brazil, leading producer of bioethanol, saved some $52 billion in avoided oil import between 1975 and 2002. Another way to save money is through improved energy efficiency. Every year Bangladesh spends about $2 billion to import oil, 15% of total national budget.
Through bio-fuel production, Bangladesh can save half of its foreign currency from avoided oil import and can allocate the savings to the other sectors of the economy.
In spite of the dispute, a look at the bigger picture reveals that an apparent straight case of fuel tak ing precedence over food is misleading. Besides, bio-fuel could be in the vanguard of much higher standards in international trade in agricultural commodities. For decades, the unjust trade in agriculture products have vested the control of agri-market of developing countries to some multinational corporations. Bio-fuel creates an additional supply of food and fuel crop that could galvanise agriculture in developing countries, which for many years have had their farming system crushed by cheap imports.
Some influential framers from the west point out that their past food surpluses dumped on developing world markets never alleviated hunger, rather it would be a good thing if developing countries could produce that we in the west are prepared to pay a fair price for.
Some protectionists suggest that
bio-fuel bonanza will Increase food price and poor people will not have access to high priced food. But whether higher prices of food will be a curse or blessing is contextual. This is, however, an opportunity for small-scale farmers getting decently paid.
Will the bio-fuel boom increase blo-diversity loss? Many advocates of bio-fuel suggest that energy crops will be growri solely on degraded and abandoned land, hence actually will enhance bio diversity and soil quality without an impact on food production. Indeed, UN figures show that there to be arround 2 billion hectares of degraded land globally that could be put into production -- 25% in Asia, 25% in Africa, 25% in Americas; the rest scattered arround the world.
In Bangladesh, other than sugarcane, bio-fuel can be produced from some crops that can be grown in areas not suitable for traditional food crops e.g. jatropha (verenda), pongamia (caron) can grow under conditions of low fertility and rainfall. The north-western region with low fertility could be put into bio-fuel crop production commer-
cially which may convert the monga-affected region into an important economic zone.
In a recent article, Peter Rudberg of Stockholm Resilience Centre argues that climate change and food security are intimately connected both when it comes to the effects of climate change but also how proposed solutions to one problem risk exaggerating the others. In the latest report from IPCC (2007) on climate change, it is assumed that conditions for agriculture in northern latitude will probably improve, while production potentials in many developing countries will be decreased, due to change in water balances. That means when the question of food security comes, the northern developed countries (EU, US, Canada) will be benefited by climate change.
US Department of Agriculture projects that fuel distilleries will require 139 million tons of corn in ,2008, this is the same amount as India might lose of its rain-fed cereal production because of climate change. Therefore, many people believe that food security of developing countries is more threatened from fossil fuel that is
mainly responsible for greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, than it is by bio-fucl.
In spite of imposing huge tarrif on Brazilian ethanol. US and EU are now heavily investing in bio-fuel technology, considering its future. Altough some sceptics warn if you start to fuel cars with crops, you are putting the world's one billion starving people in compettion with one billion motorists, world oil politics is entering into a new paradigm with bio-fuel.
Of late, numerous institutions and think-tanks have published reports concerning bio-fuels. Evidently, the bio-fuel issue engages several policy domains such as agriculture, energy, environment, and trade, which have to be integrated to face upcoming challenges
Who knows who will take the leading role in the new regime? Will the US still maintain its de facto energy consumption position or will bio-fuel change the underprivileged developing countries' position in world politics due to self-sufficiency in the energy sector?
Mohammed Abdul Baten writes from the University of Stockholm.