Risk of food crisis makes long-term solutions necessary

According to the Danish newspaper, JP, the UN agricultural and food organization, FAO, has due to fear of a global food crisis urged US to reduce the ethanol blends in gasoline. All US gasoline is blended with 10% bioethanol og they produces approx. 50 billion. liters of bioethanol from corn. The current drought which has led to 2/3 of US has been declared natural disaster area has once again opened the discussion about whether it is acceptable to use potential food for the production of fuel.

The global food production has to be stabilized

As it is illustrated at the front page of JP it is possible to produce either approx. 1000 kg meat or 1,600 liters of bioethanol and 500 kg meat from four tonnes of maize. The reason for this comparison is that the corn used for the production of bioethanol has a high starch content and therefore is not suitable for food but is traditionally used as feed for livestock production. What the illustration does not show is that food is not just food. Both humans and animals need a diet consisting of both carbohydrates and proteins. Therefor it is a simplified calculation that does not include that fact that the global demand for vegetable proteins is larger than demand for carbohydrates.

Svend Brandstrup, CEO hveiti, believes that the calculation is more complicated and that reducing the bioethanol blends will not solve the global food problems in the long term. He believes however it is time to look at the security of food in a larger context:

The risk of global food crisis will eventually be resolved by a stable food production and not only in the western world but also in the world's poorest countries. Dumping of global food prices has for too many years reduced the competitiveness of the world's poorest countries. This structure has to be changed and it will not happen if we continue the dumping.

Globally there is a lack of proteins

The global demand for proteins is greater than the demand for carbohydrates. This is due to an increasing production of meat in particular as a result of the rise in middle classes in India and China. Many of the world's poorest are malnourished due to lack of proteins. Soybeans are the most protein-rich crops and are primarily produced in South America. There are a number of alternative protein-rich crops, however it is difficult to compete with soybean on the global market. Biorefining is a solution to several challenges because the processing of the various parts of a commodity also achieves a higher resource utilization. By biorefinery of winter wheat (as in hveiti's production) the proteins are concentrated in a high value product (PDGS) which is in line with soybean meal.