Fuel Or Food? Study Sees Increasing Competition for Land, Water Resources

[sue4e3]

As strategies for energy security, investment opportunities and energy policies prompt ever-growing production and consumption of biofuels like bioethanol and biodiesel, land and water that could otherwise be used for food production increasingly are used to produce crops for fuel.

About 4 percent of the world's agricultural land and 3 to 4 percent of its fresh water are now used for growing biofuels, according to a new study published March 3, 2016 in the Nature journal Scientific Reports. About one-third of the malnourished people in the world, the findings suggest, could be fed by using these resources for food production.

With the world's population at about 7.4 billion people, and projected to grow to about 9 billion by the middle of the century, the need for food and fuel could increasingly be at odds.
http://www.sciencenewsline.com/news/2016030318420064.html

[jwirr]

1. When Jimmy Carter was running for president one of the issues

was land use. That idea needs to be reintroduced. If we are going to face our future problems we need to come up with a long term plan that allows for all the people not just the people who have the money. The same goes for water.

And if we don't start now - when?