Real lives affected by biofuels
Government targets to increase biofuel use are forcing poor farmers from their fields, replacing food crops with biofuels in a massive international land-grab. They’ve pushed up global food prices, leaving millions hungry. And most biofuels release more greenhouse gasses than the fossil fuels they were designed to replace.
In 2006, Sun Biofuels arrived in Kisarawe District and took land the size of 11,000 football pitches to establish crops grown for biofuels.
The biofuels landgrab: the story in Kisarawe, Tanzania
“We want our land back – we don’t want the money the company has because it is not enough to feed all of us.”
“They took the land when it was already tilled…they haven’t paid us anything. We are dying of hunger and there is nothing that we have that is actually our own.”
"We have learnt to live without meat, oil and other necessary items. My family believes that they can never come out of poverty."
“My family have not been able to grow any food this year.”
photo : ©Actionaid
photo : ©Tom Pietrasik/ActionAid
photo : ©ActionAid
photo : ©James Oatway/Panos/ActionAid
photo : ©ActionAid
photo : ©ActionAid
photo : ©Des Willie/ActionAid
Fact file
Hunger kills 1 child every 10 secs. Growing biofuels has reduced the amount available to eat, pushing up food prices.
In just five African countries, 1.1 million hectares have already been given over to biofuels - an area the size of Belgium.
Current industrial biofuels policies could push hundreds of millions of extra people into hunger by 2020
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