There is yet another voice to express the concerns behind the large scale adoption of biofuel crops, especially corn. It has been pointed out by Mr Ziegler that plantation of biofuel crops has already led to decrease of available arable land, and the increase of food price.
This seems to be one thing that market cannot solve satisfyingly. If we rely solely on price and demand to adjust the production of food and biofuel, it can be expected that farmers will always have incentives to plant corn to produce ethanol before the price of biofuel is the same as fossil fuel. At the same time food price will also rise and leave more people in hunger. But farmers will not turn to food production until food price (combined with subsidies, maybe) is high enough to provide revenue as good as fuel. By then millions would have starved.
A threshold should be determined which states the maximum land and other resources allocated to biofuel production and should be enforced as a law. If we cannot determine the threshold yet, I think it is another time to apply precaution principle and set a safe limit. At the same time attempts to reduce fuel consumption and improve fuel efficiency should always be encouraged.
On the other hand, Food and Agriculture Organization in 2005 considered biofuel as a key to fight against hunger, as it reduces the import bill as well as brings investments and jobs. But that argument seems to miss the resource part, ignoring food production while it examines hunger.
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