Bolivia's president says biofuels hurting food prices

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Bolivian President Evo Morales on Tuesday said biofuels were causing higher food prices in his country and that the exploitation of land to fuel "heaps of metal" would cause serious problems around the world.

"It's not possible to have so much land being devoted to heaps of metal rather than to human life," he said through a translator in a speech at Brown University.

"If we understand that earth or land is a commodity that needs to be tapped, exploited for biofuels, then man himself will be destroying planet Earth and therefore humankind," he added.

Morales is an Aymara Indian, a former coca grower and union organizer and was elected Bolivia's first indigenous president in 2005. His comments Tuesday at the Ivy League university echoed similar sentiments he expressed the previous day, when he addressed a United Nations forum on indigenous issues.

Morales told the crowd at Brown that wheat and rice prices in his country are going up so much that his administration has decided to give small producers of corn, rice, wheat and soybeans zero percent interest loans as a way to create incentives for production so that there will be enough food. The rising price of cooking oil prompted Morales in the last few weeks to ban exports -- although the price fell far enough by Tuesday that the government lifted the ban.

Speaking on Earth Day, Morales also called for moderation and better care of the environment.

"It's my sense that the excessive industrialization and luxury consumption and profit is causing a lot of harm on planet Earth," he said.

When asked by an audience member for his opinion on the U.S. presidential race, Morales declined to state an opinion about the candidates, but asked that the United States stay out of the internal problems of his own country.

Several states in eastern Bolivia want greater independence from the central government, and on May 4, two of them, including Santa Cruz, one of the country's largest and the source of its natural gas, will vote on a referendum that gives them greater autonomy. The vote is expected to pass.

Following his remarks Tuesday, Morales reiterated his position that the vote is illegal and unconstitutional.

He said his political opponents are putting the cart before the horse by pushing for autonomy before a new constitution is approved. Morales supports a proposed constitution that gives more political power to the nation's long-oppressed indigenous groups, but a vote on the constitution, which also had been planned for May 4, has been postponed indefinitely.

Morales said the constitution should be addressed first.

"We're going to guarantee autonomy in the new constitution, but it's autonomy for peoples and not for small groups," he said.