With the world teetering on the edge of a full-blown food crisis, it may be time to cut back on biofuel, said Barack Obama yesterday.

In an interview on NBC's Meet the Press, the Democratic presidential candidate said "there's no doubt that biofuels may be contributing" to falling food supplies and rising prices.

"If it turns out that we've got to make changes in our ethanol policy to help people get something to eat, then that's got to be the step we take," he said.

During the last year, global food prices have spiked, with food riots breaking out in more than 30 countries. The emerging crisis captured global attention after rice prices rose 50 percent in just two weeks in

March, setting off protests in Indonesia, riots in Haiti and worldwide panic.

Some experts say that food is a more pressing problem than climate change – and with dinner-table crops now headed to refineries, the booming popularity of biofuels is partly to blame. About 100 million tons of grain – enough to feed 450 million people at a subsistence level – were turned into fuel last year.

In the United States, where corn is king, corn-based ethanol is the centerpiece of a federal mandate to meet one-quarter of the nation's gasoline demand with renewable fuels. Corn growers are especially powerful in Obama's home state of Illinois, and the candidate has long been a biofuel booster – which makes his comments on Meet the Press

all the more welcome.

"We've got a serious food problem around the world. We've got rising food prices here in the United States. In other countries we're seeing riots because of the lack of food supplies. So this is something that we're going to have to deal with," said Obama.

Barack Obama on Meet the Press: transcript / telecast

Image: Joe Crimmings





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