C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer attack ethanol in FA:

Although controversy remains over how much of the food price increase since 2006 can be attributed to biofuels, their effects cannot be overlooked. In 2008, 30 percent of the U.S. corn crop will be used for ethanol. Although economic growth in developing countries (especially India and China) and poor crop conditions in certain parts of the food-exporting world (such as Australia) are part of the explanation for rising commodity prices worldwide, neither offers constructive opportunities for policy redirection. By contrast, the panoply of subsidies, tariffs and mandates protecting the biofuels sector, especially in the United States and the European Union, is ripe for reform…

The policy response to these pressures, in both rich and poor countries, has not been encouraging. Rather than reducing the mandates, subsidies, and tariffs that buttress the ethanol industry, the U.S. government has larded new agricultural legislation in Congress with further subsidies and shifted blame to other countries (or to economists). The one token reduction came in the recent farm bill, which trimmed the ethanol subsidy from 51 to 45 cents per gallon–hardly a significant change…

Biofuels… [threaten] both food security and the natural environment. It is now time for governments to respond, not with more trade distortions and subsidies, but by ending the failed policies that have created an artificial industry that is emptying the stomachs and purses of the world’s poor.