The growth of crop-based fuels will raise food crop prices by up to 50 percent within a decade, reports the Organisation for Economic Development.
Continuing droughts, growing populations and declining subsidies will also play a part. But driving the price hike is the replacement of crops destined for dinner tables by crops headed for fuel refineries. And the urban poor -- i.e., the soon-to-be plurality of the world's population -- will be hit hardest.
Is this a reason to give up on biofuels? Of course not. But like any other large-scale shift in production, biofuels will have complicated, unintended consequences. (One such danger comes from tropical farmers cutting down CO2-absorbing rain forests to plant fuel crops.) The OECD report shows how important it is for green energy policies to favor a broad range of energy sources, not just the agricultural, and to be accompanied by food subsidies.
OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2007-2016 [OECD]
Biofuels 'to push farm prices up' [BBC]
Image: Dave Winer
