2007-03-30 20:49:38 - Experts fear that the greater profits available to farmers from the growing of fuel crops will result in lower yields of food crops - leading to ever higher food prices. The BNP is convinced that a balance needs to be found.

Experts predict that very soon commercial crops grown for processing into fuel will fetch a higher price than they can when grown for food. This is due to four main factors ­ the ever-increasing price of oil, oil supply security, peak oil and of course global concern about climate change. It is a change that could quite easily see farmers

across the globe switching production from low-return food crops to high-return fuel-crop growing.

Indeed, in some regions of Britain, East Anglia for instance, that change is already underway. In Norfolk construction has begun on a £20 million biofuel factory which will convert locally grown sugar beet into ethanol. British Sugar, better known for the manufacturing of sugar, rather than of ethanol, of course, estimate that the plant should be capable of producing up to 60,000 tonnes of ethanol every year. In turn the ethanol can be further processed and used to fuel carbon pollution free cars or even power stations. But like most things there is a cost.

If farmers turn their relatively unprofitable wheat fields over to the production of sugar beet, for instance, then there will inevitably be a shortage of wheat ­ leading, ultimately, to higher prices for bread. Some may argue that higher bread prices may be the price that we simply have to pay in order to combat global warming. This problem is perhaps best seen in Mexico where corn and, consequently, bread prices are at a ten year high ­ due to the cheap surplus corn normally "dumped" on the Mexican market by US farmers disappearing as more and more US grown corn is converted into profitable ethanol production.

Clearly some sort of balance needs to be drawn ­ but where and how has yet to be decided. This is an issue that must be addressed before it becomes a real problem.