Matilde, a farmer in Mozambique, is struggling to survive after an industrial biofuel company took her land without offering jobs or compensation.
Matilde's small farm used to provide enough food to support a large family of 12 children and grandchildren, but is now used to grow sugar cane to be used as biofuel. Her family has even lost their small herd of goats to pesticide poisoning from the nearby plantation.
1.1 million hectares in 5 African countries have already been seized in order to grow biofuels, displacing families and leaving them with no compensation and no way to feed themselves, and EU companies are constantly requesting more and more land.
The UK government is considering an increase in the amount of biofuel in petrol and diesel. Fueling our cars is not worth the millions of displaced, starving families that the production of biofuels creates. Tell the Department for Transport to scrap plans for trebling the UK's biofuel targets.
Dear Norman Baker,
UK biofuel targets are driving biofuel companies to grab land from local communities in the developing world.
Mamadou Bah from Senegal gave up his land to a biofuel company because it promised him a job on its plantation with a decent wage.
After taking his land the company then fired him and refused to give his land back. Mamadou told ActionAid, "Our food is not enough now because we lost our land. We have to fight for our rights and find other ways to feed ourselves and make a living."
This land grab is taking place on a huge scale. EU companies have already acquired or requested at least five million hectares of land for industrial biofuel in developing countries -- that's an area larger than Denmark. This widespread injustice is dramatically threatening the ability of poor people to make ends meet and feed themselves. I am deeply concerned that, as the demand for biofuel grows, land grabbing will increase and there will be less and less land to support and feed the world's poorest people.
Equally worrying is the fact that, overall, industrial biofuels will actually make climate change worse because most biofuels release more greenhouse gasses than the fossil fuels they were designed to replace.
Your department is currently holding a consultation that is looking at the amount of biofuel in UK petrol and diesel. This letter is a formal submission to that consultation. Please ensure that the impacts that biofuel policies are having on people in the developing world are considered during your deliberations.
(Your Comments Here)
I strongly urge you to reconsider your support to industrial biofuels by scrapping the UK's biofuel targets.
Yours sincerely,
