A senior adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon says food aid is
wasteful and the United States and the European Union must cut back on their
biofuels programmes because they hurt supplies at a time of global crisis.

 BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (MAY 5, 2008) REUTERS -

A senior advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon
told European Union (EU) lawmakers in Brussels on Monday (May 5) that the
first measure to help the poor in Africa and the developing world was to
enable them to produce their own food. Aid is simply wasted, he said.
    Professor Jeffrey Sachs also criticisd over-use of biofuels, saying
that they compete for farming land and push food prices up.
    As an increasing number of reports refer to a global food crisis, Sachs
said: "If you help them to grow more food rather than shipping food aid
you'll produce an escape from poverty. If you ship food aid you'll meet one
fifth of the food needs, people will suffer, it will be very expensive and
you'll do nothing to help them get out of poverty." 
    High food and fuel prices have sparked protests and riots in poor
countries across the world in the past few
months. Many governments have introduced food subsidies or export
restrictions to counter rising costs.   
    Sachs said on Monday: "The second thing I believe we need is to
cut back significantly on our biofuels programmes which were understandable at
a time of much lower food prices and larger food stocks but do not make sense
now in a global food scarcity condition. In the United States, as much as one
third of the maize crop this year will go to the gas tank and this is a huge
blow to the world food supply." 
    The United States is the world's biggest producer of biofuels, derived
mostly from corn.
    EU leaders pledged last year to increase the proportion of biofuels
used by petrol- and diesel-consuming land
transport to 10 percent by 2020. Governments are now working on draft EU
laws.
    Faced with growing unease among member states over food prices and the
biofuels' green credentials, the European
Commission stands firm on the target, but EU Environment Commissioner
Stavros Dimas said in April that it would be subject to strict conditions in
order to prevent social harm.
    Sachs said the United States had a larger impact because its biofuels
programme was larger, but added that the
EU policy should also be reviewed.
    Biofuels are made from crops like corn, wheat, sugar and palm oil,
which refiners turn into ethanol or oil to
replace gasoline and diesel.
    Supporters say they are the only renewable alternative to fossil fuels
and generally result in reduced greenhouse gas
emission savings.