London, May 9:

The global rush to switch from oil to energy derived from plants will drive deforestation, push small farmers off the land and lead to serious food shortages and increased poverty unless carefully managed, says the mostcomprehensive survey yet completed of energy crops.

The United Nations report, compiled by all 30 of the world organisation’s agencies, points to crops like palm oil, maize, sugar cane, soya and jatropha. Rich countries want to see these extensively grown for fuel as a way to reduce their own climate changing emissions. Their productioncould help stabilise the price of oil, open up new markets and lead tohigher commodity prices for the poor.

But the UN urges governments to beware their human and environmental impacts, some of which could have irreversible consequences.

The report, which predicts winners and losers, will be studied carefully by the emerging multi-billion dollar a year biofuel industry which wants to provide as much as 25 per cent of the world’s energy within 20 years. Global production of energy crops is doubling every few years, and 17 countries have so far committed themselves to growing the crops on a large scale.

Last year more than a third of the entire US maize crop went to ethanol for fuel, a 48 per cent increase on 2005, and Brazil and China grew the crops on nearly 50m acres of land.

The EU has said that 10 per cent of all fuel must come from biofuels by 2020. Biofuels can be used in place of petrol and diesel and can play a part in reducing emissions from transport.

On the positive side, the UN says that the crops have the potentialto reduce and stabilise the price of oil, which could be very beneficial to poor countries. But it acknowledges that forests

are already being felled to provide the land to grow vast plantations of palm oil trees. Environment groups argue strongly that this is catastrophic for the climate, and potentially devastating for forest animals like orangutans in Indonesia.

The UN warns: “Where crops are grown for energy purposes the use oflarge scale cropping could lead to significant biodiversity loss, soilerosion, and nutrient leaching. Even varied crops could have negative impacts if they replace wild forests or grasslands” But the survey’s findings are mixed on whether the crops will benefit or penalise poor countries, where most of the crops are expected to be grownin future. One school of thought argues that they will take the best land, which will increase global food prices. This could benefit some farmers but penalise others and also increase the cost of emergency food aid.

“Expanded production [of biofuel crops] adds uncertainty. It could also increase the volatility of food prices with negative food security implications”, says the report which was complied by UN-Energy.

“The benefits to farmers are not assured, and may come with increased costs. [Growing biofuel crops] can be especially harmful to farmers who do not own their own land, and to the rural and urban poor who are net buyers of food, as they could suffer from even greater pressure on already limited financial resources.

“At their worst, biofuel programmes can also result in a concentration of ownership that could drive the world’s poorest farmers off their land and into deeper poverty,” it says.