(Bio)Fueling Injustice? - Europafrica

6. The social, human rights and environmental
impacts of land grabbing as a consequence of
the EU biofuel policy
Generally, it has been discussed how land grabbing in itself impacts negatively on a
number of aspects, including food security and local people’s enjoyment of the right to
food, democracy and governance, or human rights (see chapter 2 above). Without
coming back on these general effects, biofuel policies have specific consequences that
can be highlighted. With respect of European companies, a number of these effects
are summarised and examples are given in the table of the Africa Europe Faith and
Justice Network (Annex IV).
6.1. Food security and the right to food
The most widely accepted and authoritative definition of food security is the one
agreed upon during the World Food Summit in 1996: “Food security exists when all
people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and
nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and
healthy life.” 270 The concept of food security overlaps with the concept of the right to
adequate food. The latter is a universal human right which was made legally binding
in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights (ICESCR).
The right to adequate food “is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in
community with others, have physical and economic access at all times to adequate
food or means for its procurement.” 271 The main difference is that the right to food
clarifies that enjoying food security is a right for everyone, that it builds upon
internationally agreed standards clearly defining duty bearers (the states) and right
holders, with a focus on the most vulnerable people; and the State obligations. 272
The importance of the right to food was also recalled by the EU in its strategy to realise
food security. 273 The right to food stresses the following dimensions: the availability of
food to the people needing it, the economic and physical accessibility as well as its
stable access and availability. 274 These dimensions are the most affected by the EU
biofuel policy.
The impact of the EU biofuel policy will be assessed here from the point of view of the
quantity of food available, and the ability to buy food. This analysis will be based on
the understanding that biofuels play an important role in driving food prices up.
This analysis is made by respected institutes such as the International Food Policy
Research Institute, which considers in the Global Hunger Index 2011 that the increase
in food prices and price volatility is due to three main factors: 1) an increase in biofuel
production through fixed mandates that made demand unresponsive to prices, even
with volatile oil prices; 2) an increase in financial activity through commodity futures
markets; and 3) the medium- and long-term effects of climate change. 275
The Institute affirms that the United States and EU’s subsidies and mandates for
biofuel production, created a new demand for crops for fuel which
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