In light of the challenges caused by global warming and with the prospect of a “post-petroleum” era, both rich and emerging countries alike are searching for renewable energy solutions. And which is the most fashionable? Biofuels— made from vegetable products and presented as a sustainable and ecological solution. “False!” affirms Frères des Hommes and its southern partners.

First of all, biofuels (of which the “bio” suggests an environmental quality that it simply doesn’t have…) are not a profitable or environmental energy solution: they have poor energy profit (which is to say that the amount of energy it takes to produce them is almost equal to what they in turn produce) ; they increase the CO² emissions in certain parts of the world where forests are cut down for their production, like in Indonesia ; they represent a danger for biodiversity because of the mass single-crop farming that they require...

Secondly, they are one of the major causes of the rise in food prices based on the global market, and of the reoccurrence of starvation; clearly, the production of biofuels is overshadowing food production. Who’s suffering from it? The poor, whose ability to buy food is even weaker than others’ ability to buy energy.

Finally: the poor can no longer buy food, and are less and less able to grow it themselves because the land is being used for biofuels. Such is the reality, at the same time an environmental aberration and a crime against populations, that Frères des Hommes and its partners wish to change.