Bioenergy: Fuelling the food crisis?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7435439.stm

The biofuel debate is electrifying the UN food price crisis summit in Rome, pitting nations against each other and risking transforming bioenergy - once hailed as the ultimate green fuel - into the villain of the piece, the root cause behind global food price spikes.

makes for interesting reading.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Only a few years ago, our farmers were being given grants for set aside and other things to diversify and reduce agricultural land capacity. How times change.

[Stuart]

Sadly, it's probably true. Farmers are gradually stopping growing food, and moving toward crops for the far more profitable biofuels.

Using surplus agricultural production for bio-fuels shouldn't ever be a problem - however diverting food production to fuel production is another matter.

I'm puzzled, to be honest, it doesn't seem so long ago we had surplus 'wine lakes' (ethanol?) & wheat mountains in the EC.

- either of which would be, presumably, ok for biofuel production - have they suddenly disappeared, or has storage while waiting for the price to rise even more, suddenly become more viable...

[Xaccers]

I'm sure I read that the real problem was down to stock market speculators investing in agriculture products because they're more stable than many traditional markets.
I know a guy who quadroupled his money when he went on holiday at the end of April back in 1986 and put his lot into american grain because it was a safe bet to make a bit of money.
People have to eat, grain etc will always be bought.
I'm pretty sure there isn't a shortage of food crops which there would be if biofuels were the cause of the price rises (ie biofuel crops being bought for a higher price than food crops so more economic sense in farmers stopping food production).
Yes there's a rice shortage, but rice isn't normally converted into biofuels, and rice paddies aren't suitable for most crops which are used as biofuels.