The statements made last week by United Nations FAO’s Secretary General, Brazilian Graziano Da Silva, surprised everyone. Da Silva demanded the US not to give 40 per cent of its maize to the production of ethanol, since there is a risk this will make the global prices of said crop, a basic food for human and animal consumption, to rise.

The drought and the heat wave the US is going through has decimated soy and maize crops. In the case of maize, it was estimated that 50 per cent of the producion was affected. This is seen in the international index of food prices made public by the FAO in the past days. This results in Southern countries being pressured to expand crops for agrofuels, such as sugarcane, maize and soy.

Some countries such as Colombia and others have announced a growth in the surface area dedicated to these crops.

Under US law, 40% of the harvest must be used for the production of agrofuels, which are mixed in a 10 per cent rate with oil-based fossil fuels. Graziano da Silva said that if the country abandons this policy, the crop could be used for the producion of food. This was rejected by US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, who said that this regulation has a positive impact for the country.

Guadalupe Rodriguez, member of organization Rainforest Rescue, said to Real World Radio from Spain that a similar situation took place in 2007-2008 when the climate affected US farmers.

The result was an increase in the price of maize, which had a direct impact in the food system of Mexico and other Meso-American countries which depend on this crop.

“We know the consequences of these phenomena. In many places around the world there were droughts and a series of revolts started to take place in different countries due to the rising cost of the crop.
One of them was Mexico”, said Guadalupe.
In addition, Guadalupe Rodriguez made reference to the call by her organization to the US authorities to stop the production of ethanol.

“In a world where there are one billion people starving, to use food crops to fuel cars is insane and it needs to be stopped. We ask President Obama to do so, but we are also asking EU authorities to do the same”, concluded Guadalupe.