At the time of writing this brochure, the official agenda of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, is still a closely guarded secret. It is typical for the G8 to decide what’s good for the world without telling or asking the people who are being decided upon. However, political analysts expect three main themes to be addressed at the summit: Global Economic Imbalances, Energy, and Intellectual Property. Of these three, the discussion about Energy could have serious consequences for farmers and soy production.

Key players in the G8 have announced their commitment to large scale production and use of biofuels produced in developing countries. The finance ministers of the G7 (G8 minus Russia) also have the controlling votes in the IMF and World Bank, influencing their investment policies. This commitment makes pressure on land for industrial production of fodder even greater, as soy for animal fodder competes with soy, palm oil and other crops for biodiesel. Mexico has experienced a 400% price raise on corn, as the corn they would normally import from the US is now used as biofuel. Cars are put in direct competition with people, where western cars havly not available here. By relying on biofuel production in developing countries, the large agriculture and energy corporations in the industrial G8 world avoid having to make uncomfortable adjustments on production, leaving the hard choices and hard consequences up to the people and animals in the global south. e greater market value than people. Biofuels serve as a way for the G8 leaders to try doing business as usual while the amount of available fossil fuels has stopped growing and the climate crisis is more serious than ever.

Problems caused by biofuel production are made worse by so called ‘climate neutral’ or ‘climate offset’ campaigns which are aimed at ‘offsetting’ greenhouse gas emissions. This is often done by taking existing agricultural land in developing countries out of local food production to be used for fast growing CO2-binding trees and plants, which cannot be used by the people living there as using them may release CO2 back into the atmosphere.