Small Farms Best for Environment, says Organic Group

Reuters

In contrast, organic farms could increase output by 10 times by growing many different species of plants at the same time, which helped retain soil and water, she said. "In a one-acre farm in India they can grow 250 species of plants," she said.

Shiva has began a civil disobedience campaign in India against the patenting of natural seeds, particularly of crops that resist flooding and drought and can better withstand climate change.
"We need this worldwide. Seeds are for everyone," she said.

According to IFOAM, a quarter of greenhouse gases are emitted by industrially farmed crops and livestock. The proportion rises to 40 percent when including the emissions caused by transporting commodities around the world.

IFOAM members also criticized the production of fuel from grains, citing a U.S. university study that it took 1.3 gallons of fossil fuel to make 1 gallon of ethanol from corn.

The United States and Brazil defended their use of corn and sugar cane to make ethanol to fuel cars at the UN food summit saying it was a minor factor in food price inflation.

Call for an Immediate Moratorium on US Incentives for Biofuels

Organic Consumers

While the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) supports the production of biofuels from recycled waste (such as used vegetable oil, manure or sewage) and biomass sustainably grown and harvested for the benefit of local communities, the current focus on subsidizing big-agribusiness with billions of dollars of funding for inefficient fuels, while ignoring energy conservation, is a recipe for disaster.These misguided funding priorities have taken tens of billions of dollars of funding away from essential greenhouse gas reduction policies, such as energy conservation, solar and wind power, fuel-efficiency technologies, and mass transit. Many of the current methods of industrial-scale biofuel production are also causing food shortages and worsening global warming by increasing deforestation and degradation of peatlands and soils.

Increasing fuel efficiency by just 3% would reduce US dependence on foreign oil more than all of the agrofuels combined, yet more than 500% more taxpayer money is spent on subsidizing ethanol than energy conservation, mass transit, solar, wind, and fuel-efficient technologies combined.

Read a thought-provoking fact sheet on biofuels here.