Site with information about the impacts of large monocultures, specifically soy, on people's lives and the environment.
The Soy Campaign
A SEED's soy campaign questions large scale soy production in South America and supports sustainable and local food production in Europe. The campaign has the following goals:
To inform the general public about the social and ecological effects of the massive soy production in Latin America; land conflicts, violence, rising pesticide use, GMOs, deforestation, erosion and loss of food sovereignty.
To link the issue with meat production and consumption in Europe; Most of the soy is used as animal feed in Europe (and China). This meat industry creates animal cruelty and pollution by over-fertilisation.
To stop the current certification processes; nature conservation organisations and some NGOs, together with companies, are creating criteria for so called 'responsible soy' that are unacceptable for local peasants and don't question the current export-volume neither the use of genetically manipulated seeds.
To give direct support to local initiatives that fight the soy expansion by giving international attention to their struggle, doing solidarity actions in Europe and raising money.
While the problems related to soy production are continuously increasing, a new campaign focus is taking shape: fuel and electricity produced from agriculture products. Recently the threat of climate change and the increasing scarcity of fossil fuels has sped up this alarming development.
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Protest in jammed Brussels against Agrofuel corporate proposals
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
January 31 2008, Brussels - Today, campaigners staged an anti-agrofuel protest in front of the Diamant conference centre in Brussels. Here, the 'European Biofuels Technology Platform' (EBFTP) presented their advise for the EU's research budget and policy on agrofuels to 'stakeholders'. The EBFTP absurdly promotes a target of 25% blending of agrofuels for all transport needs by 2030, in a time where the currently proposed 10% is already highly contested. (with online video report)
The EBFTP is chaired by Luis Cabra of Repsol and Anders Röl of Volvo. Their respective corporations have a bad track record of pollution and invasion of indigenous territories (Repsol) and of lobbying against stricter environmental standards while threatening with relocation (Volvo).
The corporate representatives and the odd academic were welcomed with a 'Texacorn' agrofuel pump filled with popcorn, banners and a lively sambaband. Meanwhile, protesters explained the reason for this early and fresh morning gathering to the arriving participants. According to the protesters this is an absurd target that will have devastating effects on small farmers, food production and the environment. Also, the participation of biotech companies makes clear that more research budget will go into the development of 'new' GM agrofuel crops such as GM trees. For this year, a field trial with GM poplar trees for 'bio-ethanol' has been applied for in Belgium. GM trees, as a 'second generation' agrofuel feedstock, will cause huge damage to biodiversity. More arguments are presented in the attached press release sent out today.
The protest was helped by Brussels daily reality; completely jammed traffic roads in the morning rush hour. All the cars passing by on pedestrian speed gave the message that the real solution to the energy and climate crisis are a serious reduction of car-use and consumption of fuel, both fossil and from agriculture origin.
The 'Texacorn' petrol pump stressed the problematic competition between food and fuel production. The banners read "Agrofuels, no cure for oil addiction!" and "Manger ou conduir; il faut choisir" (to eat or drive; we will have to choose). This and future actions will help to make clear that the promotion of agrofuels is largely in the interest of car companies and agribusiness, in dire need for a greener image. The issue of agrofuels is no solution to oil addiction, climate change or poverty; but instead fuel the expansion of monoculture plantations. A very controversial business.
Press release
Civil society groups slam megalomaniacal agrofuel plans by industry
An industry-led advisory group backed by EU Research Commissioner proposes a 25% target of agrofuels for road transport in the midst of growing critique of the negative impacts of large-scale agrofuels.
Thursday 31st January 2008, Brussels / Amsterdam
Civil society groups demonstrated this morning in front of a gathering of the European Biofuels Technology Platform (EBFTP) in Brussels, protesting against the plans of this industry-led EU advisory group for a dramatic boost of Europe’s target for agrofuels use in transport to 25% (by 2030). The EBFTP’s demand comes at a time when the European Commission’s current proposal for a 10% target is facing intensive criticism due to the severe social and environmental effects of expanding production of agrofuels crops, especially in developing countries.
The EBFTP, dominated by oil, car and biotech companies, met today to launch the Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) and Strategy Deployment Document (SDD), which outline a detailed road map for allocating EU research & development funds in order to reach the 25 % target.
“It is ludicrous that Research Commissioner Potocnik last week backed the EBFTP, an industry platform promoting a 25% agrofuel target which would cause a further large scale environmental and social disaster in countries like Brazil and Indonesia, where farmers communities and plantation workers are already facing displacement and deteriorating working conditions due to the recent agrofuel boom”, says Jonas Vanreusel from FIAN, an international organisation for the right to food. Negative impacts would not limit to producer countries in the South, “Europe, which imports agricultural products and food, has not enough agricultural land to produce agrofuels, except for local use on the farm, and should give priority to food production” says Gérard Choplin, from the European Farmers Coordination (CPE).
“Decisions about EU’s research funding should not be left in the hand of corporations with a direct commercial interest in boosting agrofuels production. We don't want funding for GMO agrofuel crops like GM trees, for example”, says Nina Holland of Corporate Europe Observatory, an Amsterdam-based research and campaign group. The EBFTP was established in June 2006 at the initiative of the Commission’s DG Research and continues to have the undiluted backing of Commissioner Potocnik, despite growing criticism. Earlier this month, a coalition of civil society groups wrote to Commissioner Potocnik, urging him not to follow the EBFTP’s advice but instead fund research to determine the impact of agrofuels on greenhouse gas emissions.
The Commission’s current 10% target (by 2020) has recently been heavily criticised by a range of prominent voices including the UN´s special rapporteur on right to food Jean Ziegler, the UK parliament's environmental audit committee (EAC), the Commission’s Joint Research Centre, as well as EU Environment and Development Commissioners, Stavros Dimas and Louis Michel. Calls for a moratorium on all targets and incentives for expanding agrofuels use are on the rise. “Ironically, the EBFTP conference is held to coincide with the EU Sustainable Energy Week, but agrofuels are not a sustainable cure to our oil addiction, and even less to climate change” says Nina Holland.
CONTACT Nina Holland, Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO): <
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USE OF THE PICTURES It is possible to use the pictures on this page in other publications. By clicking on a picture you can go to a downloadable version with a higher resolution. The pictures are taken by Marc-Antoon de Schryver ( \n
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NOTES FOR EDITORS [1] The demonstration was organised jointly by Coordination Paysanne Europeenne (CPE), Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE), Inter-Environnement Wallonie, A SEED and FIAN.
[2] Despite EBFTP's claims to be multistakeholder fora, the group is dominated by corporations and research centres with close ties to industry. Only 2 out of some 125 members of the 5 working groups are NGO representatives. More information about the EBFTP and its composition can be found in: he EU’s agrofuel folly: policy capture by corporate interests, briefing report by Corporate Europe Observatory (June 2007). www.corporateeurope.org/agrofuelfolly.html
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