As global food costs rise, are biofuels to blame?

Converting corn and soybeans into fuels is contributing to higher food prices. The dispute is how much.

from the January 28, 2008 edition

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While higher corn prices cause lower profit margins for livestock and poultry producers, "the statistical evidence does not support a conclusion that there is a strict 'food-versus-fuel' trade-off" driving consumer food prices higher, the study said.

Whatever the reason, prices for grains such as corn and soybeans are up. Despite a record US corn crop in fall 2007, corn prices are near a record high of about $5 a bushel in mid-January.

Because corn is feedstock, higher corn prices can affect food prices. The average price of milk rose 29 percent last year, for instance, and eggs 36 percent.

"More people are coming to the conclusion that there is a food-fuel link," says Siwa Msangi of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a Washington food-security research organization. "The historic pattern of the past, where food prices were in a long-term decline, could be at an end."

But the major reason grain prices are spiking, he and others note, is fast-rising demand for higher-quality food like meat, poultry, and dairy products by the increasingly affluent people of China and India.

Still, biofuels play a role in higher grain prices, says Dr. Babcock.

His findings are bolstered by a study last month in which Mr. Msangi's IFPRI estimated that future biofuel expansion could increase international corn prices between 26 and 72 percent by 2020, depending on how aggressive the expansion turns out to be.

Under two scenarios IFPRI examined, "the increase in crop prices resulting from expanded biofuel production was accompanied by a net decrease in the availability of ... food" for the world's poor, the study found.

As prices rise, of course, producers worldwide have incentive to grow more corn – or other crops, such as wheat, that might be in demand instead of corn.

But that's not happening yet. In an apparent effort to moderate food prices and quell social unrest – which in turn curbs growers' incentive to produce more – Russia this month is expected to place a 40 percent export tax on wheat. Argentina, too, has limited its wheat exports.

"The price of corn, soybeans, and livestock feed is not going to go down," Babcock says. America's new energy bill "pretty much guarantees that feed costs and land rent are going to stay high."

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