WB Report: Biofuel caused food crisis

Report: Biofuel caused food crisis
From Aditya Chakrabortty, The Guardian:
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% far more than previously estimated according to a confidential World Bank (WB) report obtained by The Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body. The figure emphatically contradicts the US claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil. Development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush. “It would put the WB in a political hot-spot with the White House,” said one. Biofuels policy The news comes at a critical point in the world’s negotiations on biofuels policy. Leaders of the G-8 industrialised countries meet next week in Hokkaido, Japan, where they will discuss the food crisis and come under intense lobbying from campaigners calling for a moratorium on the use of plant-derived fuels. It will also put pressure on the British government, which is due to release its own report on the impact of biofuels, the Gallagher Report. Rising food prices have pushed 100 million people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. President Bush has linked higher food prices to higher demand from India and China, but the leaked World Bank study disputes that: “Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor for price increases.” Even successive droughts in Australia, calculates the report, have had a marginal impact. Instead, it argues that the EU and US drive for biofuels has had by far the biggest impact on food supply and prices. Since April, all petrol and diesel in Britain has had to include 2.5% from biofuels. The EU has been considering raising that target to 10% by 2020, but is faced with mounting evidence that that will only push food prices higher. It argues that production of biofuels has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards biodiesel