Hunger and the Climate Change

During this week the big discussions we have had on the Global Change course, has rotated around how hunger and bio-fuels are connected. Because these subjects are so complicated, it is difficult for us to grasp it all. That is why we now are airing the perspectives that we have thought about it.

Is bio-fuel the way to solve the climate changes, or are bio-fuels the source of the hunger problem, therefore causing an equally as big a problem?

As we see it, it really depends on how the bio-fuel is produced and from what and where. On one side bio-fuel is causing the big hunger problem in Tanzania, which leads to many people in Tanzania are starving, because big international companies are grabbing the land from the local people, and using it to produce jatropha or sugarcanes to mention some crops. This means that a lot of the land in Tanzania is used to grow crops that can’t be used as food for the local people. Then where is the food going to come from, when it is too expensive to import food from other countries? What I have just described is also provoking the prices on food in Tanzania, which means that food prices are rising so that people can’t afford to buy the food they need to survive, when 58% of the population of Tanzania are living for under 1 dollar a day. So from this perspective bio-fuel in Tanzania is one of the root problems to hunger in Tanzania.

On the other hand, bio-fuel is also framed as a product to come about the climate changes on a global level. If we don’t try to do something about the climate changes in the world, the climate is also going to make it difficult or almost impossible to cultivate the land and thereby getting food for the starving people. So how to go around these problems, when it seems that one problem leads to the other?

As I mentioned in the beginning of this blog post, it is also a discussing of how, where and of what bio-fuels are produced. The situation in Tanzania, as we see it, is quite complicated, because the bio-fuel is being produced from non-eatable crops, and because the production of bio-fuels demands huge amounts of energy, which also contribute to the global warming.

So as you might have read from this post, this is still a debate that we are having and that is very importent for our future campaign.

We therefore call upon you to join in, and tell us what you think about this subject. Several minds think better the one!

Thoughts from Sara, a student at the Global Change course in Tanzania.