Biofuel Backlash

ROME — Outside the U.N. emergency summit on food Wednesday, protesters dressed as ears of corn. Inside, Bush administration officials found themselves on the defensive on such U.S. policies as biofuel production, genetic engineering and subsidies.

Delegates clashed during the second day of the three-day meeting on how much blame can be assigned to biofuels for the meteoric rise in food prices. The United States is an enthusiastic supporter of a heavily subsidized biofuel industry, allocating about a quarter of its corn crop to ethanol development.

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Schafer (ed. US Secretary of Agriculture) maintains that bumper U.S. corn crops provide plenty of corn for eating and filling tanks. He says the shift to biofuels accounts for no more than 3 percent of the hike in commodity prices, which in some cases have doubled in recent years.

Several U.N. agencies, relief groups and the International Monetary Fund, however, say as much as 30 percent of the increase could be blamed on biofuels.

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Biofuels were once hailed as an alternative to fossil fuels and a way to ease dependence on oil. But a growing body of experts and others question the efficiency of biofuels and assert that ethanol production is usurping arable land that should be used for foods or left as oxygen-enhancing forests, wetlands and natural habitats.

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I don't know how the Secretary of Agriculture is claiming that there is enough production to meet both food and energy needs when talking about bio-fuels given that the US relies mainly on corn based ethanol and everything I have read indicates that in order to meet our energy needs using ethanol every bit of arable land would have to be given over to corn production and none of that corn used for food.

Even factoring in Bio-diesel we still mainly have to use food crops such as peanuts or soy as a source of the oil, but at least it is more efficient energy wise than ethanol.