Source:  Chris Scott, MEATINGPLACE, 6/14/11

A report prepared by 10 international agencies for next week’s Group of 20 conference in Paris is recommending that major governments drop policies supporting biofuels because of the effect they have on global food prices.

Generated by experts from such groups as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, the report notes that abrupt changes in the price of oil can lead to crops diverted to produce biofuels, which in turn increases food price volatility.

It recommends that government subsidies that support biofuel development be abandoned, a topic that U.S. Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack is expected to address on some level when he meets with the G20 on June 23.

Vilsack has already gone on the record that he plans on raising the need for science-based rules to increase global agricultural production and improve food security when he speaks to the G20 ministers.
In an address yesterday before the National Press Club, Vilsack said he believes that corn-based ethanol doesn’t deserve the bad reputation it received in recent years with regard to rising food prices, saying that biofuels played a minor role in food price increases in 2008.

He also projected that the world will need to increase the food output by 70 percent by 2050, adding that reducing U.S. government support of food and agricultural development would be “penny wise and pound foolish” because of the current USDA research efforts that ultimately can affect national security.  

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