Argentines worried about biofuels / food conflict

Save it for food

"Yet in Argentina, where a quarter of the 38 million people remain in poverty five years after an economic crisis, some fear that a growing demand for grains to make biofuels will translate into higher food prices after two years of double-digit inflation."

"This idea of using grains to make energy instead of using them for food, now that's a problem," resident Pedro Marcote said. "Food prices keep going up and up."

And it isn't just a concern in Argentina. The U.S. is also seeing small price increases in food due to ethanol, and those increases might be just a very worrying beginning.

"Authorities should be careful about promoting biofuel use, said Loek Boonkamp, head of the agricultural trade and markets division of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

He estimated this year that replacing just 10 percent of the world's current petroleum use with biofuels would consume about 30 percent of all the grain, oilseed and sugar produced in the U.S., Canada, the European Union and Brazil."

(Yahoo)