Biofuels - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 179

Chapter 7
Biofuels
Competition for Cropland, Water, and
Energy Resources
David Pimentel and Michael Burgess
Introduction
Malnutrition in the world today is incapacitating more people and causing more ill-
ness and deaths annually than any other disease affecting humans (Pimentel et al. 2007).
The World Food Programme (2010) reports that 1.02 billion people, children plus adults,
are protein/calorie malnourished. The WHO (2000) reported in 2000 that 3.7 billion
people were micronutrient malnourished, while the World Food Programme (2010)
reported the number of undernourished people reached 1.02 billion in 2009, increasing
the number of malnourished and undernourished people to 4.7 billion, which means an
estimated 66% of the world population suffers from malnourishment and undernour-
ished due to a lack of one nutrient or another or multiple nutrients (See Gaiha et al. this
volume; Stein this volume).
David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel have identified stark contrasts between the avail-
ability of the Earth's resources and the billions of people who rely on them for their very
survival (Pimentel and Pimentel 2008). Human survival, the food supply, and the vital
environmental resources that make survival possible are being threatened by overpopula-
tion. Each day about a quarter million people are added to the 7.0 billion who already exist
on Earth (PRB 2012). While this rapid human population growth takes place, the supply
of natural resources that supports human life—including food, fresh water, quality soil,
energy, and biodiversity—is being polluted, degraded, and depleted (Pimentel et al. 2009).
The objective of this chapter is to analyze (1) the uses and interdependencies among
land, water, and fossil energy resources in food versus biofuel production; and (2) the
characteristics of the environmental impacts caused by food production and production
of biofuels.