As the price of food rises and stories are told of people around the world stocking up on commodities such as rice, questions are being asked about the role biofuel is playing in what many predict will become a worldwide crisis.
In North America, the increase in crops such as corn and canola, planted to service the growing need for biofuel, is changing the business of agriculture.
It is also changing in developing countries, where there is also a push to grow soybeans and corn for use in biofuels. Critics suggest the resulting changes are anything but positive, pointing to stories of small farmers being pushed from their land to make way for big biofuel companies and chemical spraying on crops that is harming citizens.
What do you think? Do you have questions about the role the race to use more biofuel is having on the world's economy? Two activists working with developing countries will be online Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET to answer your questions. Leave your question now using the comment function and join us then to read their answers.
Javiera Rulli is trained as a biologist and works directly with rural communities in Argentina and Paraguay to document human rights abuses connected to the expansion of soy monoculture.
"Ongoing human rights violations in Paraguay go hand in hand with the advancement of soy monocultures. Agribusiness corporations knowingly take advantage of the fact that in Paraguay corruption florishes, while environmental regulations or human rights are not respected," she says.
Wilhelmina "Ditdit" Pelegrina, from the Philippines, is trained as an agronomist and works to promote agricultural biodiversity conservation in communities across Southeast Asia. In her ten years with the Southeast Asia Regional Initiative for Community Empowerment (SEARICE), she has helped co-ordinate projects and lobby internationally and regionally to strengthen farmers' rights to manage their own plant genetic resources.
"The situation is much more complex now that it was before. At the same time, we can no longer go back to the old production system because there are also merits in the current system. We must therefore find ways to cope with the ever changing system while reducing risks and addressing the disparity of access to land, market and technology," she says.
Ms. Rulli has been deeply involved in South American social movements dealing with peasant rights at the grassroots and international policy level. She currently works as a campaigner and researcher with Base Investigaciones Sociales, a Paraguay-based organization that works for social development through changes of ideas, attitudes and values. Ms. Rulli co-ordinates the National Watch Group on Agrofuels in Paraguay and was a lead organizer of the 2006 Chake Ñuha: National Seminar on Agrofuels and Environmental Services in Paraguay. Javiera Rulli is a co-author of the 2006 report 'Paraguay Sojero' (Soy Producer Paraguay) compiled by Grupo de Reflexión Rural which exposes the widespread human rights violations, including biodiversity destruction, related to soy expansion in Paraguay. The report provides detailed accounts of violent acts against rural and indigenous communities in Paraguay. Javiera has also worked in The Netherlands with ASEED (Action of Solidarity, Environment, Equality and Diversity).
Ms. Pelegrina has worked with civil society organizations, extension agencies and farmers groups in Bhutan, Lao PDF, Indonesia and Vietnam to promote sustainable agricultural practices, as well as processes such as farmers' field school, participatory rural appraisals, and participatory plant breeding. She is also on the Board of directors of USC Canada.
As the executive director of SEARICE, Ms. Pelegrina sheds light on concrete field level experiences on agricultural biodiversity conservation, participatory plant breeding, seed systems enhancement, and farmers' rights to local, national, regional and international platforms, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.
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