CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY —Alcantara and Sons Consolidated Resources, Inc.’s (Alsons) bioethanol plant project in the hinterland barangays here is a big threat to this city’s food security program.

This as the city land use plan (CLUP) for Year 2000 of Cagayan de Oro stated that land devoted to crop cultivation is only 22 percent or 4,529 hectares of the city’s total land area.

Cagayan de Oro only has 20,646 hectares of agricultural land left, the CLUP 2000 said.

Carl Cesar Rebuta, team leader of the Cagayan de Oro City office of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center-Kasama sa Kalikasan/Friends of the Earth (LRC-KsK/FoE), said that biofuel production is a competitor to any country’s food security.

“As experienced by biofuel-producing countries, biofuel production is not only detrimental to the environment but more importantly also threaten food security and rural livelihood,” he said.

Rebuta underscores the statement of an Alsons official that their bioethanol plant proposed for construction in barangays Bayanga and Mambuaya will need at least 10,000 hectares of cassava plantation to support its daily requirement.

Tirso Santillan, Alsons executive vice president, said this large tract of cassava land is needed to produce 100,000 liters of 99.5 percent pure ethanol every day, the daily rated output of the proposed plant.

But Rebuta said the raw materials requirement of Alsons’ proposed bioethanol plant will directly undermine this city’s food security.

“Converting 10,000 hectares of rich productive land into cassava plantations will mean competition to the food security, not only of the city, but of the region,” Rebuta said.

“Later on, previous locally available farm produce will become expensive,” he added as he explained that because cassava will have a ready market in Alsons, farmers will be forced to abandon cultivating for food and concentrate on planting cassava.

According to the CLUP 2000, only 22 percent or 4,529 hectares of the city’s total land area are planted with crops.

“The city’s current agricultural area cover is placed at 20,646 hectares, down by 35 percent from the previous years’ (prior to 1996) area cover of 31,849 hectares.

These constitute 42 percent of the city’s total land area and with only about 22 percent of these or 4,529 hectares are planted with crops,” the CLUP 2000 read.

The CLUP 2000 also noted that Cagayan de Oro is “traditionally deficit in its food production.”

“With lands of agricultural value being converted into urban use, the city’s production areas to sustain agricultural productivity will have to abide mainly with the rural, hinterland barangays,” it added.

The proposed bioethanol plant will be constructed on a 20-hectare