Putin rubbing hands with glee as West warned ditching his oil could spark food crisis

The UN has also warned that the war in Ukraine could make an additional 47 million people food insecure in 2022. And with perhaps more crops being used for biofuels instead of food production, which will potentially be made more expensive due to oil sanctions, estimates may even be worse than feared. 

The Transport and Environment publication has also accused the European biofuels lobby of “cynically taking advantage of people’s concerns over fuel prices” after it called for imports of Russian oil to be replaced by biofuels produced from food crops. 

It warned that crops are far more important for food than fuel, stressing that using biofuels will make the already dire food crisis even worse as having it replace Russian oil would hardly be able to replace boycotted supplies, while also reducing food supplies for those most in need.

The biofuels lobby led ePure and the European Biodiesel Board, had argued that Russian oil could be replaced with biofuels made from waste and residues, as well as crops like wheat, corn, barley, sunflower, rapeseed and other vegetable oils.

This would also mean a large proportion of food crops would not be eaten and instead used as biofuels. According to Matin Qaim at the University of Bonn in Germany, around 10 percent of all grain is turned into biofuel. 

Article source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1671718/putin-oil-sanctions-food-crisis-biofuel-ukraine-war