Biofuels

The production of biofuels, particularly ethanol from corn, has become commercially competitive since oil prices have risen (a barrel of crude is now selling at ca. $65 per barrel). Political events have largely been responsible for this increase in oil prices, such as the uncertainty of supplies from Iraq, Iranian adventurism in the Persian Gulf, and instability in the oil producing region of Nigeria.
As ethanol has become a competitive fuel to gasoline, since it is both less polluting and an alternative energy source, so the diversion of corn to ethanol production as opposed to its use as a major food crop, has increased. In Brazil this process has been going on for years, and now most public transport in Brazil runs on ethanol. Fortunately, Brazil has enough domestic corn production to allow this smooth transition. In the US, the world's major producer of corn, only ca. 8% of corn is currently diverted to ethanol production. But, as US car manufacturers switch to ethanol use, this proportion will definitely rise.
As a result, there will be less corn available for cheap sales to poor countries that do not have enough domestic production of their own or which rely on food supplies from international aid agencies (that usually buy it through governments at lower prices). For example, Mexico, Egypt and Nigeria are heavily dependent on US imported corn supplies, and there have already been so called "tortilla" riots in Mexico, since due to the increase in corn prices, the price of the basic staple tortillas has doubled in the past year. If this trend continues one can expect food riots in Egypt. Other countries that will be affected include those in Africa that are dependent on free grain supplies, including Sudan and Sierra Leone.
In the recent past the selection of more efficient food crops, the so-called 'green revolution,' has been dependent on the discovery of improved crops by agricultural research, such as the improved rice grains. But, this method of manual selection has reached its limits. Now the only way forward is to use genetic modification (GM) in order to genetically select crops with improved characteristics. These would include not only increased food content, but also adaptation to drier climates by transferring genes for water retention from some crops to others. In doing this research it has been found that such adaptations are not always simple, i.e. they are not single gene adaptations but involve multiple gene groups.
One major problem in this area is that the EU has banned GM products because of a misplaced conservatism. It seems ironic that liberals in the EU see the introduction of GM seeds as a plot principally by the US food companies to "take over" the food production of the world and force poor people to eat these "experimental" grains. This is a lot of hogwash. Not only is GM simply a form of selection that has been practised by farmers since time immemorial (that's how we have the highly efficient grains we currently have), but it is also available in the US and there is no limit on its sale as long as it has been tested and has passed certain criteria. The unbelievable stupidity of European liberals in attacking fields where this kind of improved grain is being grown, shows that they care not that their actions will in the longer run cause massive shortfalls of grain supplies and the inevitable famine and deaths of millions of starving people around the world who live on a very fine margin.