Whose Interest is it Anyway?

A little different post today... a little 'food for thought':

Two successive news articles caught my eye last night. Firstly, Italian billionaire Silvio Berlusconi returned to power for the third (but not successive) time in the Italian elections. Berlusconi embodies the problem of conflict of interest in politics. His own TV channels advertised his campaign, his papers ran allegations of fraud in the opposing centre-left camp. Even more revealing, however, is this: the centre-right Berlusconi has achieved the support of communist Fausto Bertinotti in his stance over the fate of the national airline, Alitalia. Here stands Berlusconi, championing workers’ rights and promising to prevent the sale of the distressed airline to Air France-KLM. As background, the sale (saving Alitalia from bankruptcy) was accepted by the government before the powerful trade unions claimed they would not accept the proposed job losses. Is Berlusconi a reborn labour rights campaigner? No – and don’t be surprised if in the next few weeks or months, Alitalia becomes part of the Berlusconi empire.

Lamenting as to why it wasn’t glaringly apparent to the Italians the folly of their electoral choice, the next news story diverts my attention, and changes my perspective. “Biofuels” are the subject of this piece, and in particular the controversy surrounding them. And I realised, this topic represents a far broader, deeper, ingrained and insidious manifestation of conflict of interest than anything in Italian politics. Let me explain. Western politics are (rightly and finally) beginning to consider the issue of environment. The introduction and support for biofuels is one such interest. Developing fuels that are safer for the environment is a key step towards a healthier planet. However there is a severe dislocation between those who benefit from this policy, and those who are burdened with the negative side effects, and herein lies the conflict of interest. Westerners can continue driving and using fuel in the belief that this fuel is now more efficient, more environmentally friendly (which it is). They don’t change their habits (after all, habits are difficult to change) and don’t suffer any loss. But the production of biofuels requires arable land, land that was previously used for farming food crops. Food supplies have now fallen to historically low levels, and prices have been pushed up to historically high levels. Further, prices are volatile. As farmers change crops to take advantage of high prices, the ones they rotate away from suffer a demand-supply imbalance. The allocation of resources has changed. Whereas so much land was once dedicated to basic foodstuffs, much is now devoted to biofuels. The price rises are not spread equitably among the world’s consumers either. Due to packaging, marketing, additives and other deformations, the price of ‘food’ in the western world is only in small part due to the underlying commodity price. Contrast this to food in poorer locations. Where food is not processed and packaged, the underlying price is paramount. And so, as westerners ‘do their bit’ for the environment by using biofuels, we see revolts and riots in Egypt, Haiti, Mexico, Morocco, India, Yemen, Burkina Faso, Haiti and others.

Western governments may be doing the right thing in protecting the environment, but they are not doing the right thing in outsourcing their problems to poorer countries. There should not be a controversy about the use of biofuels; we should be concentrating on developing cleaner fuels. But we should not be playing with the lives and fortunes of others in this pursuit.

Modern agricultural practices must change - UNESCO
Food Price Surge Could Mean ‘7 Lost Years’ in Poverty Fight - World Bank