Cuba's Castro criticises ethanol and bio-fuels
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| Published on Thursday, May 17, 2007 |
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By Theresa Bradley
HAVANA, Cuba (Bloomberg): Cuban President Fidel Castro has published another article criticising bio-fuels, at least his third since March, outlining the human and environmental risks posed by sugar-based ethanol.
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| Cuban President Fidel Castro. AFP PHOTO |
The mass cultivation of sugar cane needed to produce much of the world's ethanol pushes small farmers to abandon lands to large companies that force workers to toil without adequate water, food, housing, sometimes for $3 a day, Castro wrote in an editorial published on Tuesday by Cuba's Granma newspaper.
"For us, the main question is to eliminate the plantation and have a serious food production policy," Castro wrote, citing dozens of Brazilian cane workers who described their difficulties in a documentary by Brazilian filmmaker Maria Luisa Mendonza.
Castro emerged from eight months of convalescence in March to dispute an ethanol cooperation accord signed by the US and Brazil, the world's largest ethanol exporter. He and Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez have argued that a global shift toward bio-fuel would drive up world food prices and devastate the poor. Venezuela is the world's sixth largest exporter of crude.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio da Silva meanwhile on Tuesday announced plans for state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA to stockpile ethanol for export, ensuring supply. He also pledged to improve labour conditions for cane harvesters in the country.
Free trade has assured rich countries a monopoly on global energy resources and obligated developing nations to export cheap energy, exploiting workers and damaging the environment, Castro wrote.
The mass production of sugar cane -- the main ingredient of Brazilian ethanol, whereas the US favors corn-based bio-fuel -- pollutes soil and drinking water with chemical fertilizers, while the routine burning of cane fields before harvest contaminates and dries out the air, he said.
Castro noted that he'd himself been born on a sugar cane farm, surrounded by plantations that three US multinationals, including the United Fruit Company, owned.
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