Name of weekly column: The filth columnist

Surprise surprise. The government got it wrong on biofuels.

In the rush to develop biofuel crops the strategists forgot a simple truth - people need to eat. TFC predicted this a couple of months back when a report said that to hit HALF of the biofuel target for 2020, the EU would need to turn over 70% of farmland.

Funny how TFC was able to multiply 70 by 2 and realised that equals 140% of existing arable land that would need converting. TFC was able to draw the obvious conclusions - where would the extra land come from, who would farm it and what would people eat!?

"A panel of governmental experts", chaired by Professor Ed Gallagher, have come to the conclusion that Gordon Brown's use of corn diesel and vegetable oil biodiesel as a weapon in the fight against global warming needs review. Ruth Kelly, the transport minister, obviously a little more switched on, if not a little slow to act, asked for this review in February, but the panel only met in March, delivering its findings in late June. D'oh!

Global food crisis

Of course the UK are probably too late to influence EU targets and undoubtedly the EU will not have enough teeth to influence the US and Brazil - who are now the major producers of veggie fuel. The US claims that their reliance of biofuel only has a 3% influence over global food prices, that are leading to the global food crisis (which will soon drive over 100 million people towards hunger). The International Monetary Fund puts this figure at 20-30%. In the same way as the US played with all our financial securities by letting the sub-prime mortgage situation get out of hand, it seems they are playing with all of our cooking pots in another blinkered view, this time about their insatiable appetite for cheap fuel.

Avoiding food poverty

TFC sees a huge irony that a recent summit on the subject took place in Rome. Just as Nero fiddled while that city burnt, are the world leaders going to fiddle about while their populations starve? There needs to be a fundamental change here - the world is beholding to the combustion engine and its incessant demands for fuel. Instead of driving us all into food poverty, let's get the world leaders together and come up with a viable, affordable method of transportation. As it is - it seems a nonsense to drive to a supermarket to buy goods imported from all over the world.

The UK consumers' tastes have become simply too bohemian. If we only ate in season local produce, a lot of lorries would disappear overnight - Gordon Ramsay got it right. TFC could launch an attack on food strategy and ask the question: “why is the government not imposing legislation on the supermarkets that enforces a move away from 365 days per year consumer choice?”, but that's another blog.

Finally. Last night TFC had a curry from his most favourite curry house in Watford, the Ali Baba. On asking the owner why prices hadn't gone up, the chap told TFC that rice is now three times the price of 6 months ago and cooking oil double, but he was waiting to see what happens. He attributed the increase in the price of raw material (bad pun) to transportation costs. Which leads TFC to conclude that his palate is part of problem too - if he didn't want curry, maybe less rice would be imported and less fuel needed. But the other conclusion is that everyone out there needs to start to think about this issue and their own behaviours.

Think now or starve later.

Footnote - on the spellchecker, biofuels = baffles and biodiesel = biopsies. How apt.