The human cost of your bio fuel
To eat . . . . or to drive? - Times Online
....The economics of food — what is affordable, what it costs, and what that money buys — are creating unprecedented waves through all continents. From nut plantations in Indonesia to barley fields along the Rhine, farmers are all adjusting to this new world.
Part of the result is tortilla riots in Mexico, the astonishing leap in Brazilian chicken leg prices and mayonnaise price spikes in Western Europe.
These, say industry insiders, are the first skirmishes of a conflict that could soon dominate geopolitics: the war for resources between the world’s 800 million cars and its six billion stomachs. In the developed world, the war will come down to price and choice; in the developing world it could come down to survival.
The war centres largely on global demand for biofuels — “green” replacements for petrol, such as ethanol, that can be produced from sugar, corn and other agricultural products rather than fossil fuels.
Farmers are making a perfectly rational economic choice. With the price of crude oil high, they are planting crops to meet demand for cheaper biofuels. But converting more crops into energy means there is less to go into foodstuffs. And so the price of those foodstuffs rise......
For too long in the West the price of food has been a problem we don't worry about - the percentage of our wage we spend on it every year decreases. But forget "water wars" or the predicted chaos caused by climate change. this is the big story, this is what is affecting billions of people, this is what will cause instability as people die.