Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK; born 25 April 1949) is a French economist, lawyer and politician, and a member of the Socialist Party (PS). He was selected as the new Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in September 2007 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Strauss-Kahn ).
Dr Dominique Strauss-Kahn on biofuel and “crime against humanity using foodstuff to produce biofuels” (2008): “Just a little point just to underscore part of what Bob just said, which is the difference in biofuel between what comes from food crops and nonfood crops. Of course, we can argue that there are a lot of good reasons that climate change is a huge problem, good reasons to try to push countries to substitute some kind of a biofuel to oil. The problem is that's totally different when you do it from different kind of crops which are not food crops or come from food. And then, I think, really we need to have more work on that because we are talking about raising money just in the short run to help the different countries get through the situation they are in. But money is not enough because you don't need money; you need to have something to buy. And to raise money just to buy sufficient foodstuff doesn't solve the problem at all.
So, the real problem we are facing is a problem which probably for a long time—I won't say decades but at least years—we have a deficit in foodstuffs. So, in this case, the international community has to think about what is the biggest risk in the short run and to make a correct balance between production of biofuel from food stuffs and biofuel coming from nonfood stuffs.
And have I listened to some Ministers during these two days who are very, very strongly against this kind of thing, talking about crime against humanity using foodstuff to produce biofuels. It's part of an informal conversation, but nevertheless it shows how strong this concern is, and I think that we absolutely need to work on that, and very rapidly.” [1].
[1]. Transcript of the Development Committee Press Briefing by Agustín Carstens, Chairman, Development Committee; Robert B. Zoellick, President, World Bank Group; and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director, IMF, Washington, DC, April 13, 2008: http://www.imf.org/external/np/tr/2008/tr080413.htm .