Solving World Hunger or Global Warming, Not Both

Just when you decided to make the switch from a gas-guzzler to a trendy new Prius, the cache of taking your gas tank green might be in for a backlash. Sure, jumping on the biofuel bandwagon does the environment a favor, but will it aggravate world hunger in the process?

The United Nations World Food Program, which is currently responsible for feeding 90 million of the world's 850 million hungry citizens, told the Financial Times on Sunday that if demand for ethanol pushes food prices up as much as some predict, the organization will no longer be able to support as many of the world's hungry as they do now.

That means your average do-gooder wouldn't see trading oil for biofuels as a totally win-win decision after all.

The W.F.P. said that its purchasing costs have risen almost 50 percent in the last five years, and that the price of maize has more than doubled in some places in the last six months. With the global agricultural market steadily tightening and the donation of funds remaining constant, the looming additional pressure from fuel product could break the agency's budget for supplies.

Ethanol, of course, is based on some of the same grains that make up the basis of the human diet (including feed for farm animals) - so a massive upswing in grain demand is expected to bring with it an equally large price surge. Some predict it could result in a dangerous shortage in how much grain is available for food production.

That economists are sounding alarm bells about the impact of biofuel production on food prices is nothing new - what is new is framing the issue in terms of competing global emergencies, rather than personal inconvenience. If true, environmental advocates who are happy to pay more at the register for a box of cereal in return for lower emissions will have to grapple with how their support of biofuels is detrimental to the world's neediest.

by Liz Gunnison