Over the years, biofuel production has increased and it’s apparent that it is driven by the threat of Climate Change. As a result, food prices have increased especially for food crops used to produce biofuel. This paper, written by Regional Hunger & Vulnerability Programme (RHVP), “examines the likely effect of increased prices of maize, sugar, etc on South African consumers. The report focuses especially on the very poor for whom such staples form a substantial proportion of their food basket. It then looks at the SA government’s industrial biofuels strategy, and finds it seriously flawed in its assumptions, and particularly in its analysis of the likely impact on the poorest: it suggests the strategy will result in a highly unequal contest between the poor having to compete for the basics on which they live, and the rich who want to burn it to run their cars. Finally the paper makes four specific recommendations on how the strategy could be modified to ensure that the potential benefits of bioenergy are captured by the poor in rural areas, rather than monopolized by rich, urban consumers.”

Download the file.