Headline in the New York Times today: “Rush to Use Crops as Fuel Raises Food Prices and Hunger Fears.” NYT reports:

Each year, an ever larger portion of the world’s crops — cassava and corn, sugar and palm oil — is being diverted for biofuels as developed countries pass laws mandating greater use of nonfossil fuels and as emerging powerhouses like China seek new sources of energy to keep their cars and industries running. …

But with food prices rising sharply in recent months, many experts are calling on countries to scale back their headlong rush into green fuel development, arguing that the combination of ambitious biofuel targets and mediocre harvests of some crucial crops is contributing to high prices, hunger and political instability. …

Soaring food prices have caused riots or contributed to political turmoil in a host of poor countries in recent months, including Algeria, Egypt and Bangladesh, where palm oil, a common biofuel ingredient, provides crucial nutrition to a desperately poor populace. During the second half of 2010, the price of corn rose steeply — 73 percent in the United States — an increase that the United Nations World Food Program attributed in part to the greater use of American corn for bioethanol.

Longtime readers of The Locker Room knew this would happen back when Pres. George Bush signed biofuels initiatives into law. Here, for example, is a chart I made back in 2008:

Corn futures and ethanol

Another item from the NYT, with emphasis added:

This year, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported that its index of food prices was the highest in its more than 20 years of existence. Prices rose 15 percent from October to January alone, potentially “throwing an additional 44 million people in low- and middle-income countries into poverty,” the World Bank said.

As I said years ago, “any politician who campaigns about helping the poor but supports increased ethanol production needs to turn in his phony cares-for-the-poor credentials.”