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US, EU must cut back on biofuels: UN
All our fault, of course. Couldn't be that a big chunk of the world is incapable of settling down to grow food themselves.
BRUSSELS - The United States and Europe should cut back on production of biofuels because they are hurting food supply at a time of rising prices, an adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday. Biofuels derived from crops have come under attack in recent weeks on fears they compete with food for farming land and help to push up food prices, worsening a global crisis that is affecting millions of poor.

"We need to cut back significantly on our biofuels programmes," said Jeffrey Sachs, a prominent U.S. academic who is a special adviser to Ban on anti-poverty goals. "(They) were understandable at a time of much lower food prices and larger food stocks but do not make sense now in a global food scarcity condition," Sachs told a news conference.

"In the United States as much as one third of maize crop this year will go to gas tank. This is a huge blow to the world food supply," Sachs said before talks in Brussels with EU lawmakers.
Posted by: Steve White 2008-05-06
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=238308