Castro Blasts Bio-Fuel Strategy

In an echo to the warnings that the global warming frenzy will keep electricity and fossil fuels from helping the poor in developing countries, Fidel Castro has blasted plans to ramp up bio-fuel use as "sinister".

"The sinister idea of converting food into combustible was definitively established as the economic line of the foreign policy of the United States," he writes.

The Cuban leader also notes that Cuba has also experimented with extracting ethanol from sugarcane.

“But if rich nations decide to import huge amounts of traditional food crops such as corn from developing countries to help meet their energy needs, it could have disastrous consequences for the world's poor,” Castro writes.

The problem is not only in importing food crops, but not exporting them. Already, the demand for corn for bio-fuel in the US has resulted in skyrocketing tortilla prices in Mexico--where the tortilla is the main source of calories for many of the poor.

Hmm. Maybe the recent Senate hearings on Global Warming and related policies should have included Fidel Castro--not to mention Mexican President Calderon.

Al Gore's current "moral" crusade apparently doesn't weigh the impact on the poor. We need the corn. Let them eat cake.