THE GOVERNMENT OF India is drafting the country’s first ever biofuel policy, which has been a closed door affair for civil society. One can keep guessing what the final text would read but seeing the current thrust, it is likely to give impetus to an already inflated drive to promote corporate-sponsored biofuels.

Since 2003, the government’s intent has been articulated in a National Biodiesel Mission. This has been mirrored in the recommendations of the Planning Commission’s Committee on Development of Biofuels — the proportion of biofuel blends to be mixed with petroleum be increased from five percent to 20 percent by 2012. A Group of Ministers (GoM), headed by the Union Minister of Agriculture, is tasked with a fullfledged biofuels policy.

Biofuels are another instance where the need for a solution has been used as a business opportunity by those who created the problem in the first place! It might be opportune to mention two things here — first, that a series of Indo-US energy talks preceded the announcement of any domestic biofuel policy. Second, the demand for more fuel has been created by high levels of consumption caused by the expansion of an energy-intensive world order. Manufacturing and business processes have been exploiting natural resources. The biofuel propaganda by businesses is simply an act against its own destruction.

In the context of climate change, large corporations — including petroleum giants, mining companies, automobile manufacturers and food processors — have hopped on to the biofuel bandwagon, even sponsoring debates on the criteria for “sustainable biofuels”. The noble intention of “green” energy appear to be more reflective of the colour of money than any ecological consideration.

So it is not surprising that the main players attempting to influence the domestic policy on biofuels are business and industry. In 2006, biodiesel suppliers and others formed the Biodiesel Association of India, which is the main group lobbying for legal and policy changes, including more land, raw material and tax exemptions. Likewise, the sugar manufacturers are lobbying for favourable policy support.

For a country like India where the majority lead an off-the-grid life, this means that more land needs to come under cultivation of crops like jatropha, pongamia and sugar sources, which can be tapped for oil and ethanol production respectively. Agricultural land, forests and even grazing land, which support people’s livelihoods, are being used to promote fuel plantations. Land, a source of food, is now being seen as a source for oil extraction. The rising demand for fuel in an increasingly mechanised world simply cannot be fulfilled even if more land is brought under biofuel plantations.

In 2005, the Chhattisgarh Biofuel Development Authority was set up and, in 2006, a set of Rules was notified for biodiesel plantations in the state. Forest and “waste” land began to be diverted for ratanjyot or karanj plantations. In traditional wisdom and in the ecological worldview, there is nothing “waste”. In states like Rajasthan, huge tracts of the neeji beer (private grazing lands) projected as “waste” lands are being systematically promoted for jatropha plantations, through the state government’s “green patta” policy. For a pastoralist society, this would mean using pastures for “fuel” cultivation, and the survival of livestock then becomes a serious question.

In Orissa, some villagers have been duped of their land, including revenue-generating, fully grown mahua trees, in the garb of leasing out their land for an environment-friendly option. The Orissa government’s Renewable Energy Development Agency is pushing the state’s draft biofuels policy as a poverty alleviation programme. Ironically, jatropha plantations are being pushed in the Kalahandi- Bolangir-Koraput region, which is known for its food shortage.

Special Economic Zones, industries, mines and dams are obviously industrial undertakings. It is a different thing that their impact is forgotten and condoned for the
sake of the “growth” of a nation. But biofuels wear a green mask while touting solutions to climate change. This veil is gradually lifting now, with the promotion of biofuels being seen as adding to the food crisis. Peasant communities, indigenous people and regular consumers have been crying hoarse about the direct ill-effects, from land grab to food price hikes, which they are facing due to the expansion of the biofuel industry. More recently, there have also been murmurs of concern from within the officialdom, with the Finance Minister of India raising concerns about these ill-effects.

The promotion of biofuels today is yet another corporate agenda with clear intentions of private profit. We have to stop regarding our forest, fallow, pasture and agricultural land as “waste” or convertibles, and the people who are dependent on these lands as dispensable. Till then, the business of changing the climate will go on in full swing.

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Op020808oily_greenmask.asp

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