Ethanol boom could worsen world hunger: study [View All]

[babylonsister]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070403/sc_afp/usenergyfoodeconomy_070403185953

Ethanol boom could worsen world hunger: study

Tue Apr 3, 2:59 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The boom in ethanol fuels in the United States and elsewhere could have devastating effects on food prices and worsen world hunger, a new study argues.

The study by C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer of the University of Minnesota said the rush into ethanol threatens to divert massive amounts of corn and other food crops into biofuels.

The researcher write in the May/June edition of Foreign Affairs that governments should stop incentives for ethanol until biofuels can be economically produced from sources other than corn and soybeans.

"Resorting to biofuels is likely to exacerbate world hunger," they said. "Several studies by economists at the World Bank and elsewhere suggest that caloric consumption among the world's poor declines by about half of one percent whenever the average prices of all major food staples increase by one percent."

The researchers said the surge in energy prices along with subsidies and incentives given by governments has pushed farmers into diverting massive amounts of corn, oilseeds and other crops into ethanol.

In the US, this affects corn, but in Brazil it involves sugar cane and in Africa cassava.

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