Biofuels
and Tortillas:
A
US-Mexican Tale of Chances and Challenges
10:00am-12:00pm,
March 16, 2007
485 Russell Senate Office
Building
The
Environmental and Energy Study Institute and the Heinrich Böll
Foundation invite you to join us for Biofuels
and Tortillas: A US-Mexican Tale of Chances and Challenges,
a discussion on the impacts of
US
demand for ethanol on world
markets, specifically Mexican tortilla markets.
A few
weeks ago, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans were taking to
the street to protest rising prices for tortillas, a food
staple especially for the poorest of Mexicans. While
Mexico
has been traditionally an
exporter of corn, more than ten years into the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada
and the
United States,
Mexico
has become increasingly
dependent on growing corn imports from the United States. In the wake of rapid NAFTA
implementation, many Mexican farmers have left the
countryside as they were unable to compete with subsidized
US
commodity prices. More
recently, American corn prices have risen substantially as
domestic demand for corn has increased for the production of
bioethanol, a renewable fuel, and thereby effecting tortilla
prices in
Mexico. With the US Administration
pushing for a rapid expansion of the domestic use of
alternative fuels such as bioethanol in next few years, many
agricultural experts forecast that
US
corn exports, including
those to
Mexico, could decline
significantly. For
Mexico, this could mean the need to
encourage higher domestic production and to reduce its
reliance on imports in order to increase the country’s
food security.
Speakers:
· Victor
Quintana, Frente
Democrático Campesino de Chihuahua at Universidad Àutònoma
de Ciudad Juàrez-
Chihuahua
Talking Points from Speech
· Alexandra
Spieldoch, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Speech
· Barbara
Bramble, National
Wildlife Federation
Bioenergy Wiki Handout
Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels Handout
· Daniel
De La Torre Ugarte,
University
of
Tennessee
Agricultural
Policy
Analysis
Center
Audio Recording of Briefing and Q&A
While
the debate on the desirability and increased use of biofuels
in industrialized countries is often simplistically and
wrongly pitted as “fuel vs. food”, the example of the
Mexican tortilla price crisis does illustrate that the
linkages between biofuels, agricultural trade policies,
rural development strategies, both domestically and abroad,
should be explored and analyzed more thoroughly.
Print
Version of Notice
These briefings are open to
the public and no reservations are required. Please feel free to
forward this notice. For more information, contact Jetta L. Wong
(jwong@eesi.org), 202-662-1885.
