Biofuel has raised food prices by 75%

The promotion of alternative energy source biodiesel as an alternative to oil and fossil fuels has led to serious consequences for food prices, which have risen up to 75% as a result of farmers’ preference for growing biofuel products rather than basic foods.

This is according to a confidential report from the World Bank, the results of a study undertaken by a team of recognized standing in the international economic community who met in April, but the results were not published to avoid damage to U.S. President George W. Bush, one of the greatest proponents of biodiesel as the best new vehicle fuel alternative.

The analysis takes into account the upward trend of prices and contradicts the opinions from Washington who argue that biofuel energy has had a minimal effect of just 3% on the increase in food prices.

The powers at the World Bank believed that the release of the report would put World Bank in a conflict with the White House.

Its leaking comes at a critical point in negotiations on biodiesel, because next week the G8 leaders will meet in Japan with the price crisis of food and energy alternatives as a key focus of the discussions.

Also, lobbyists who are demanding a moratorium on the use of fuels derived from plants have increased their campaign and some countries like the UK have released reports giving their own negative conclusions about the impact of biodiesel.

The recent increases have put hundreds of millions of people below the poverty line, according to the World Bank, where many governments have appreciated that this is the first real economic crisis of globalisation.

However, the U.S has linked these changes with rising demand from countries such as India or China, although the international body itself disputes this theory.

The report states that without an increase in the use of biofuels, stocks of wheat and flour would not have fallen dramatically and the price increases due to other factors would have been “moderate”.

In addition, it maintains that its production has distorted the food market in three ways.

On the one hand, by diversifying production into the energy at the expense of food, with a third of U.S. corn used to produce ethanol.

Also, EU target production of biodiesel by farmers has encouraged them to prioritize biodiesel production.

Finally the huge speculation on the cost of the product in the markets has also helped to raise prices.