Poor grow hungry as biofuel tables fill

Americans griping about the higher cost of food might want to take a look at what’s happening in places like Kenya or Sri Lanka.

Food prices in those countries rose 25 percent during the past year, more than four times the inflation U.S. consumers saw, according to a new report by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization. In Botswana, food prices are up 18 percent.
It’s those kinds of price increases that alarm aid organizations and economists. They say that food is becoming unaffordable for the world’s poorest people, who already spend 50 percent to 70 percent of their income on simple meals.

These price increases are also feeding the growing concerns worldwide about U.S. and European biofuel policies.

The organization’s report, issued in advance of a conference on food security this week in Rome, warns that 22 nations are especially threatened by rising food prices.

One is Kenya, where nearly one-third of the population is undernourished and the price of corn has nearly doubled to more than $7 a bushel in the past year. Corn meal is used to make a mash or porridge known as ugali, a staple of the Kenyan diet.

Demand for food has grown because of growing populations and income in countries such as China and India. Droughts reduced wheat production last year. Export bans have driven up the price of foods, such as rice.

Nevertheless, food policy institute economists say one step that governments can take to rein in food prices is to halt the growth in biofuel production. Rolling back U.S. incentives for ethanol would be enough to “bring some children in developing countries out of hunger,” the institute’s Mark Rosegrant told a Senate committee recently.

Freezing biofuel production at 2007 levels would lower the price of corn by 6 percent in 2010 and 14 percent by 2015, according to the group.

No one in Washington expects such a freeze to happen anytime soon, certainly not ahead of an election, given the political clout of the farm and ethanol lobby.

But if the kind of inflation that nations such as Kenya are seeing continues, biofuels may be tougher sell to the rest of the world.

Des Moines Register