'Ban biofuel for cheaper food'

"Our models analysis suggest that if a moratorium on biofuels would be issued in 2008, we could expect a price decline of maize by about 20% and for wheat by about 10% in 2009-10. So it's this significant," Joachim von Braun, who heads the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), told reporters in a briefing.

The role of burgeoning biofuel production, which diverts food crops like corn to make ethanol, has become a sharply divisive issue in the United States and elsewhere as the world grapples with a dramatic shock in food prices.

The soaring cost of basic staples like milk and bread has sparked unrest and deepened political instability in many corners of the developing world.

Biofuel supporters in the US call the ethanol criticism wrong-headed and see the technologies as a needed alternative to America's dependence on foreign oil.

That is especially important, they say, with oil prices forging new ground close to $120 a barrel.

Us food prices are expected to jump by up to 5% this year. At the same time, about a quarter of the US corn crop will go toward ethanol.

Yet the Bush administration sees energy, not ethanol, as the biggest price driver, and describes a future for biofuels that leans heavily on alternate sources like switchgrass.

Backlash brewing?

With more costly food and fuel exacerbating the pain of a slowing economy, and the ranks of needy Americans receiving government food vouchers on the rise, a backlash appears to be taking root in the US.

Some state governments are publicly reconsidering their ethanol policies, and a few big meat and poultry companies are asking for steps to cool the high cost of animal feed.

In Von Braun's eyes, crops like sugar cane offer greater promise for biofuels. "The opportunities of agriculture being an energy producing sector should not in principle be discarded," he said.

- Reuters