UN rapporteur criticizes food-based ethanol production

June 14

Jean Ziegler, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, said that producing ethanol from foodstuffs would condemn hundreds of thousands of people in the world to death from hunger, Prensa Latina reported.

Ziegler accused the United States, European Union and Japan of “total hypocrisy” for promoting ethanol production in order to reduce their dependence on imported oil, the article said.

“There is a great danger for the right to food from the development of biofuels,” the UN envoy said at a press conference during a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council.

He added that hundreds of thousands of people could die from hunger as a result of producing ethanol from basic foodstuffs like corn. He noted that in some parts of Mexico, the price of corn shot up by 16% as a result of greater demand for producing biofuels.