A moratorium on production of grain-based biofuels would help ease raging wheat and corn prices by up to 20 percent in the next few years, a leading agriculture research group said on Tuesday.
"Our models analysis suggest that if a moratorium on biofuels would be issued in 2008, we could expect a price decline of maize by about 20 percent and for wheat by about 10 percent in 2009-10. So it's this significant," Joachim von Braun, who heads the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), told reporters in a briefing.
The role in the United States and elsewhere of burgeoning biofuel production, which diverts food crops like corn to make ethanol, is increasingly divisive as the world grapples with a dramatic shock in food prices. The soaring cost of basic staples, like milk and bread, has sparked unrest and deepened political instability in many corners of the developing world.
Biofuel supporters in the United States call the ethanol criticism wrong-headed, saying that the technologies offer a needed alternative to America's dependence on foreign oil. Von Braun also said that changing supply-and-demand dynamics had been driving soaring crop prices through the end of last year, but that market speculation and government steps to curb prices - such as export bans - had taken on an increasingly influential role in 2008.
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