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THE BLAME GAME

Written by Andrew Blue

Saturday, 07 June 2008

Douglas Alexander blames Robert Mugabe, Pope Benedict XVI blames everyone, lots of people are blaming biofuels and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is left to pick up the pieces. The three-day summit of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome could hardly have got off to a worse start because no-one could agree on anything, let alone what they were supposed to be disagreeing about in the first place. While the childish squabbling continues there are millions of people on the brink of starvation. The prevailing food crisis is the culmination of several events which in themselves might have been manageable but together pose a serious challenge for world leaders.

Gordon Brown dutifully announced that the world "cannot afford to fail" to deal with the food shortages ravaging many poor countries, which raises the question of how well has our own government responded to this crisis. High oil prices have led to higher fuel costs, which hits farmers around the globe and inhibits the transport of food. Has Gordon Brown done anything to reduce oil prices? His recent conversation with North Sea oil companies may have given the impression that he is making an effort to improve the situation, but in reality nobody is. Neither Gordon Brown nor any other world leader can bring down oil prices thanks to the OPEC cartel, despite what he would like you to believe.

So what about biofuels? America (who provides generous subsidies to biofuel producers) says that biofuels have only contributed 2-3% out of the 43% rise in food prices, whereas other countries put the figure at 15-30%. The EU Biofuels Directive, stating that 20% of our road journeys have to be powered by biofuels by 2020, is devastating rainforests around the globe and has surely made a significant contribution to soaring food prices. Could Gordon Brown have done anything about biofuels? In this instance, yes. He could have announced to the EU and the world that the EU Biofuels Directive is misguided (as Europe's Environment Chief admitted back in January) and EU leaders must immediately postpone the directive until world food production is stabilised, after which point it will be reconsidered in light of the current problems. But he didn't. No-one did. All the Presidents and Prime Ministers in the EU have said and done absolutely nothing. There are people dying around the world, yet the EU leaders remain silent.

The crimes of the EU do not stop there. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been ridiculed for years, and with good reason. Not only does it consume over 40% of the entire EU budget, it incentivises inappropriate farming techniques in almost comical proportions - the most infamous being that farmers are paid NOT to farm on their land in many cases in a desperate authoritarian attempt to regulate food prices within the EU. The CAP is embarrassing at the best of times, but when millions are perishing because food prices have risen too high is it acceptable to pay farmers to set aside a portion of their land instead of using it to grow crops? It is tolerable that the EU has produced vast ‘butter mountains' and ‘wine lakes' over several years, only to dump them on local farmers in the Third World and destroy their domestic food markets? I think not.

Gordon Brown, should he have wished to take the lead on this matter, could have softened the blow of high food prices but the opportunity is slipping away from him due to his cowardice and naivety (in my humble opinion). He is quoted as saying that the food crisis should be one of the top items for discussion at the G8 summit in Japan in July, and he has also indicated that the EU's biofuels target should be ‘reviewed'. Similarly, the CAP is due for review - albeit in 2013. Tragically, all this is already too little, too late.

Andrew Blue is a political commentator based in Westminster. He authors the
'Letters From A Tory' blog.

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