Lutheran Church opposes ethanol production in the country

Rafael Menjívar Saavedra, SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador, April 11, 2007

“Since corn and sugar cane are the raw materials for the producing of ethanol for Taxi Heathrow Airport fuel in the country, we are opposed to it because its negative impact on the family economy will be greater than the benefits that it could bring about,” has said Bishop Medardo Gómez of the Salvadorian Lutheran Church.

Following the visit of United States President George W. Bush to Brazil, Central America and Mexico last March, the Salvadorian government has proposed that El Salvador be the host country for a pilot project to produce ethanol from sugar cane and yellow corn. However, even though the crisis of the increase in gasoline prices, now around US$3.50 a gallon, is affecting the national economy, the proposal is being strongly opposed in different sectors.

El Salvador’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Francisco Laínez, has informed of an agreement for cooperation having been reached between the country and the United States and Brazil for the development of bio fuels, and that in fact the installing of a plant to supply Central America and another in the Caribbean, is foreseen.

According to Laínez, both Brazil and the United States will be sending technical assistance and training in the next few days in preparation for the installing of the plant.

"Given that El Salvador is a small country, poor and deforested, we no not understand how the government has committed itself to carrying forward measures that beforehand are known to be damaging for the country,” maintains Gómez.

Gómez ended by saying that: “We are opposed to the developed countries continuing to tell us what to do and that as a country we not have a plan as a nation to guide us.”

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