The United States government has made plans to increase the use of biofuels in the coming years in an attempt to replace the use of fossil fuels. Admittedly, the use of fossil fuels in the earlier years has been alarming in the United States because of the excessive emissions of carbon (IV) oxide gas and other gases that cause global warming. In the past, the country has had a decline in agricultural production because of the serious changes in climate as a result of global warming.in order to meet the increasing energy demands in the united states, replacing the fossil fuels may not an easy task (Mehla, 2008). A lot of corn must be produced or a larger portion of the current corn production be used as a raw material in the manufacture of biofuels. The increase in demand of biofuels will cause a corresponding increase in food prices, which will stir a famine crisis in the country. Certainly, increasing use of biofuels will increase food prices beyond what most people can afford, thus cause hunger and a corresponding increase in poverty rates.
While the concerns of increasing use of biofuels are gaining momentum each day, they are of bad taste to some, at least, who disagree with such claims. In this regard, the argument on advocating the increased use of biofuels borders on the assertion that there is global food surplus. Suggestively, the proponents claim that the use of biofuels will reduce hunger by positively affecting the distribution structures. The energy future coalition, a pro-biofuel coalition of global business, environmental groups and laboring its report suggests that biofuels have a potential to attract investment that will foster agricultural production, spur rural economic growth and alleviate poverty (Altawell, 2014).
The production of biofuels will increase the competition for water resources among agriculture, energy and other uses. With such competition, it is likely that the amount and quality of water available per capita in the United States will decrease. Access to enough and quality water for drinking and other purposes is essential in improving economic production. Moreover, in such situations, there is a lot of waste of water that may prevail. Most low-income earning people will be forced to shift from agricultural activities when the competition for water gets stiff, with some being rendered jobless. The prices of agricultural commodities will increase because of the high cost of production, which will shrink the household economy of most people, leading to increased poverty.
Noticing that food accounts take a major portion of expenditure of the poor families, an increase in food prices makes them even more miserable. It is worth noting that poverty and hunger are related in the sense that hunger is in the central vicious cycle that perpetuates poverty in families. The increasing demand for more biofuels in the United States has contributed partly to an increase in food prices. Noting that the increases in food prices are not accompanied with corresponding increases in incomes, more people are likely to starve because of inadequate food (Runge, & Senauer, 2007).
While food may not be a problem at the national level, it is a critical factor at the household level (Zilberman et al., 2012). The household economy relies on access to food in order to prosper. Accordingly, the level of income available for an individual is pertinent in assessing one’s access to food, which is a measure of poverty levels. In essence, the impact of biofuels on the household food security can be assessed using the household incomes and food prices. Typically, individuals with higher incomes can buy more food and liver a better life. On the contrary, poor families especially, the African Americans who have little incomes will be forced to spend more than 80% of their incomes in purchasing food commodities (Amann, Baer & Coes, 2010). In a situation where buying food will drain all the family income, other functions of the family such as educating children becomes challenging. In extreme, scarcity of food because of high prices, some of the children will drop out of school, which gradually increases poverty.
In the urban areas of the united states of America, higher food prices will have a substantial effect on the poor because little food production in those areas (Demirbas, & Balat, 2006). Typically, in the urban areas food will account for a large portion of the household expenditures especially for the poor. In an attempt to develop a coping strategy, because of the reduction in disposable income due to higher prices, households may be forced to sell their assets, engage in low economic activities. Furthermore, some people will increase borrowing to mitigate the decline in consumption. Alternatively, the same people will most likely reduce expenditures in education and health. Undoubtedly, all the aforementioned mitigation strategies will increase the poverty levels among the poor.
Owing to the increase in demand of biofuels, human labor, which is provided by the poor casual laborers, will be substituted with the agricultural machines. Higher food prices will create lead to the food inaccessibility of adequate food for the poor, and this will result in malnutrition (Lin, Smith, Babbitt & Trabold 2011). In essence, with a weak physical strength because of malnutrition the productivity of human labor will be uneconomical. In addition, the large corporations will compete to increase their production in order to make maximum profits. In these circumstances, it is certain that the replacement of human labor with machines will become inevitable. The disadvantage with the use of machines is that the people who initially relied on such farms to provide casual labor will lack a source of income and thus engage in borrowing, selling of their assets and children will drop out of school. In these circumstances, most people will live in abject poverty.
The clearance of forests to give room for production of crops such as corn to be used in the biofuel industries is another root cause of poverty (Muller, Schmidhuber, Hoogeveen & Steduto, 2007). In essence, the forests playa pertinent role in sinking carbon IV oxide gas to prevent global warming. In addition, forests are important in the hydrological balance, which plays a key role to agricultural production. Similarly, poor farming practices such as mono cropping will contribute to the degradation of land and cause infertility. The effect of land degradation and global warming will make agricultural production expensive and uneconomical for the low-income families who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.in response, such families will engage in low economic activities, consumption of less nutritious causes and they will face economic costs because of diseases, thus become even poorer.
According to Huang and Ho (2011), the amount of energy required in industries of factories in the United States is more than what the biofuels can provide. While scientists have tried to culture cassava and corn varieties through genetic modification, it is not obvious that production of such raw materials for biofuel production will increase. Typically, there are many factors, which affect production of crops including the weather that is often unpredictable.in essence, it is feared that before production of biofuel energy can stabilize, energy shortages in the short-term can negatively impact the economy. Some of the impacts especially for high-energy consuming industries would trigger sacking of some employees as a strategy to reduce expenses and safeguard profits. In other words, more people will become jobless, which may make them to sell their assets, lack access to health services, and their children will be forced to drop out of school. All these, will increase poverty rates in America.
Since production of biofuels impacts on the food security of households, increasing their production will foster poverty for most individuals. As biofuel production causes increases in prices of food commodities, the availability of food in families becomes a problem. In extreme situation parents have to forego a meal in order to feed their children. The situation is even worse when a mother, foregoes a meal because this affects maternal health (Huang & Ho, 2011). With poor maternal health, babies are born with defects, and they become dependents. In the end, the parents and other family members cannot find time to engage in economic activities, thus leading to increased poverty.
In conclusion, the production of biofuels is important in reducing global warming and climate change. There are some benefits that the poor will obtain from a move to replace fossil fuels with biofuels. However, production of Biofuels leads to increase in food prices leading to hunger. Therefore, increasing use of biofuels will increase food prices beyond what most people can afford, thus cause hunger and a corresponding increase in poverty rates.
References
Altawell, N. (2014). The selection process of biomass materials for the production of bio-fuels and co-firing.
Amann, E., Baer, W., & Coes, D. V. (2010). Energy, Bio Fuels and Development. Taylor & Francis.
Demirbas, M. F., & Balat, M. (2006). Recent advances on the production and utilization trends of bio-fuels: A global perspective. Energy Conversion and Management. doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2005.11.014
Huang, C., & Ho, L. (2011). Do bio-fuel policies lead to speculative behavior? Journal of Financial Economic Policy. doi:10.1108/17576381111133624
Lin, J., Smith, D. F., Babbitt, C. W., & Trabold, T. A. (2011). Assessment of bio-fuel options for solid oxide fuel cell-based auxiliary power units. doi:10.1109/ISSST.2011.5936840
Mehla, S. K. (2008). Bio-Fuels: Marketing Strategies and Impact on Rural Development. New Delhi: Aavishkar Publishers.
Muller, A., Schmidhuber, J., Hoogeveen, J., & Steduto, P. (2007). Some insights in the effect of growing bio-energy demand on global food security and natural resources. Retrieved from http://test.iwaponline.com/wp/010S1/0083/010S10083.pdf
Runge, F. C., & Senauer, B. (2007). How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor. The New American Realism, 86(3), 41-53. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20032348?uid=3738336&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21105008908443
Zilberman, D., Hochman, G., Rajagolpal, D., Sexton, S., & Timilsina, G. (2012). The Impact of Bio-fuels on Commodity Food Prices: Assessment of Findings. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 95(2), 275-281. Retrieved from http://ajae.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/2/275.full
