Horacio Martins explained to Real World Radio in his native tongue how the productivist models taken by several governments of the global South, especially Latin America, have resulted in an expansion of monocultures to produce agrofuels, which according to him are not competing yet with food production in terms of land, although this has occurred in the US, world´s leading producer of corn based ethanol.

In the case of Brazil, where sugar cane production to produce ethanol occupies eight million hectares, the occupation of agricultural land is not an important issue, but it is in the US, where the process has strong subsidies.

Martins doesn´t blame the agrofuel expansion so much for the global rise of food prices, but the “oligopolization” of the food production process through agribusiness corporations. “The economists that have analysed this issue in Brazil concluded that the production costs of food are not related anymore with their final price”, which is influenced by strong speculation processes in the so-called “markets of the future”.

The development of GM enzymes has given way to a new generation of agrofuels, for instance from vegetal and forest waste and cellulose. These enzymes, “property” of agribusiness transnational corporations cause new dependence of the peripheral countries with reference to the central countries, Martins stated. “With any dry material you can create stock, which with these enzymes it can be turned into alcohol fuel, and then it could be turned into biodiesel”, he pointed out.

Therefore, it can be concluded that energy production from biomass, a crucial energy alternative for the future, is in the hands of the corporations, which causes an even deeper dependence, Horacio Martins said.