February 5, 2008
The Guardian

Close to 60 people made a standing room only crowd in Charlottetown Monday as the startling complexity surrounding biofuel production became a public debate. The Council of Canadians hosted the forum that featured three speakers. Danny Hendricken representing the National Farmers Union was one of them. “It is a delicate situation for the farming community,” he said. “It can cause a lot of divisiveness.”

He predicted that some 20 per cent of potato farmers on P.E.I. will be in foreclosure this spring as Island agriculture desperately seeks a way to stay alive. The same is happening around the world and transnational corporations are busy stepping up with an answer, the meeting was told. Governments are paying subsidies to allow land to be converted to crops that can be turned into ethanol, which in turn can be added as a supplement to fossil fuel engines.

That change of land from potentially diverse food production to corporate-dependent fuel crops could mark a huge and dramatic shift in Island agriculture, the meeting was told.

These crops, including sugar beets, are usually genetically modified, being resistant to one specific herbicide. That allows the farmer to spray that herbicide to kill weeds but the crop remains intact.

The rest of the article is available here:
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/index.cfm?sid=105279&sc=98