DAVID SMITH (The way the world can feed itself, News Review, last week) notes that even Gordon Brown has recognised that biofuels are a contributory factor in the global food crisis. Our frustration is the ever-widening gap between Brown’s rhetoric and his actions.

While he calls summits and postures internationally he is dithering on biofuels. On April 15 the government introduced a law enforcing biofuel content at the pumps. A review of the impact of biofuels has been ostentatiously ordered but we are going ahead with the renewable transport fuel obligation before we hear the results, which is like going to war and then examining the case for it. Also the review is being carried out by the Renewable Fuels Agency, a body funded and set up to roll out biofuels, which has directors from corporations with biofuel interests (BP and Bionerg). This doesn’t fill us with confidence in its findings.

As Smith notes, a big shift is inevitable, but in the meantime we will have caused great suffering and loss of life from hunger and malnutrition and pushed climate change closer to the unseen “tipping point” so many scientists fear. For that, Brown must take his share of the responsibility.

Phil Thornhill, Campaign Against Climate Change
Dr Andrew Boswell, Co-Director, Biofuelwatch

BAD RESEARCH: It is not capitalism that should be blamed for the so-called “silent tsunami”. The food crisis has much to do with USled policies on agricultural research. Research on staple crops that feed the poor in South America, Asia and Africa has been left to international agriculture centres, which spend £250m annually but have improved nothing. Productivity of cassava, which supplies more than 70% of calories for more than 300m people in Latin America and Africa, has actually dropped in the past 30 years. Our research shows it could be increased almost tenfold. Nagib Nassar, Professor of Genetics, Universidade de Brasilia

OUT OF AFRICA: Smith raises the pertinent question “Are there too many people and too little food?”. Despite a projected increase in the world population to 9 billion by 2050, Paul Collier [author of The Bottom Billion] tells us not to panic as the solution lies with “large swathes of Africa [that] could be used far more productively if properly managed by large companies”. Does he mean more for food and less for people? I’m not sure this will allow me to sleep more peacefully. John Browne, Exeter

VEG, NO MEAT: We can feed the world but we will have to change our food habits. Tens of billions of animals are raised for food every year but the grains fed to them could feed billions more people than the meat does. In a thirsty world a huge amount of water is used in raising these animals. Add to this the biofuel that is consuming the food that sustains humans and we have a recipe for disaster. A return to a vegetarian and vegan diet would take off some of the pressure. Nitin Mehta, Croydon

SELF-SUFFICIENT: Is it wise for the government to allow the population of Britain to grow or should it be limited to a level at which the country can produce enough food to feed itself? Dr Douglas Model, London SW1

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