Are biofuels really beneficial for humanity?

Biofuels are the single greatest threat to food security especially for the low-income groups in view of their influence on supply and prices of staple food. The tipping point could be seen on their effect in propelling water scarcity into crisis proportion in 2 ways: a) feedstock production will use tremendous amounts of water, putting severe pressure on water allocation for food or for biofuel crop production, b) processing will produce voluminous liquid wastes, polluting both surface and ground waters, thus, reducing further the supply of clean and potable water. Biofuel production may further increase environmental degradation in the following ways: a) more land clearing/deforestation to grow the feedstock source which in turn may lead to more soil erosion due to tillage; b) drying of peat soils to grow more palm oil which will release more CO2 in the atmosphere; c) the industrial plantation technology that will be used in feedstock production will lead to greater use of fertilizers particularly nitrogen which will release more NO sub x and CO2 due to N-fertilizer manufacture and greater use of oil in various stages of feedstock production and processing; and d) as an agri-industrial production set-up, biofuel production thrives on large-scale monoculture production. This will trigger land concentration which will displace agrarian reform beneficiaries, thus reversing the gains of redistributive agrarian reform achievements of many Third World Countries. Ironically, biofuel production does not contribute to energy security especially if corn and other energy-intensive crops are used as feedstocks. During this difficult transition to more renewable, stable and environment-friendly energy alternatives, extra care and precautions are necessary to avoid falling into the trap of having a 'cure worst than the disease-the biofuel malady'. There are many other options to reduce oil consumption and they are as follows: improve energy efficiency, shift to organic agriculture, adopt vegetarian diet or less meat diet, adopt an ecological lifestyle, minimize the use of cars!-walk, ride a bike, shift to more renewable environment-friendly sources of energy like solar, wave, and wind energy.