Bolivian President Evo Morales on Monday criticized "some South American presidents" for supporting the use of biofuels, which he said are responsible for high food prices and global hunger. Visiting the United Nations while fighting autonomy referendums called by the opposition at home, the Bolivian president said the increased use of farmland for fuel crops was causing a "tremendous increase" in the price of food -- especially of wheat, which has made bread more expensive.

The European Commission is not starting to backtrack on its target of getting 10 percent of its road transport fuel from crops and biomass by 2020, a spokesman said on Monday. The January proposals have become increasingly controversial amid soaring world food prices and fears that farm land in developing countries is being diverted away from food crops towards others that can be distilled into vehicle fuel. Asked by reporters whether media reports that the Commission was reconsidering the biofuel target were true, the spokesman said: "The answer is very simple -- no."

Food inflation in the time of rising fuel prices has a new dimension: diversion of more and more farmland for bio-fuel production. Three experts debate whether food and fuel are either/or choice. What is the long-term solution for obtaining food security? Can a multilateral body like the WTO or UN have a role in this? Can reneweable fuels meet growing energy demand? SUNITA NARAIN Director, Centre for Science and Environment

Britain will push for changes in European Union biofuels targets if a review of British policy shows rising biofuels production drives up food prices and harms the environment, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday. Brown is due to meet development experts and retail and farmers' representatives later on Tuesday to work on a plan to tackle rising food prices. His government ordered a review of the environmental and economic effects of biofuels production in February.

Rick Wagoner, General Motors' president and chief executive, has dismissed United Nations research that links biofuel production to rising food prices as "shockingly misinformed". The blunt assessment by the head of the world's largest car company reinvigorates intense debate about ostensible social costs and environmental benefits of biofuels, a burgeoning industry some analysts say crowds out food production. "If you look at what's causing higher [bio]fuel prices, the cost of corn is a very small part of that," Mr Wagoner said at the Auto China show in Beijing yesterday.

High food prices are today a serious humanitarian concern. They are also a source of macroeconomic instability affecting budgets, trade balances and, of course, incomes almost everywhere in the world.

Global food price rises are leading to

The foreign adviser, Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, has urged the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to immediately establish a high- level task force to address the acute global food crisis. He made the appeal while chairing a ministerial meeting of LDCs on the eve of the inauguration of UNCTAD-XII in the Ghana's capital on Saturday. Iftekhar proposed that the task force, comprising eminent persons, should address long-term food security issues including those of agricultural productivity, grains trade, land utilisation and diversion for bio-fuels.

Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan Saturday told governments to invest more in agriculture to avoid future food crises, but warned that current shortages would hurt the poor. Annan said the surging price of basic foods like rice, wheat and corn in some of the world's poorest countries, which have triggered riots in Haiti and demonstrations in some African countries, will last for sometime. Factors contributing to the rise include the increasing demand for biofuels, and the rising cost of oil and transportation.

The nascent biofuels industry that dawned in the aftermath of massive meltdowns of polar icecaps and Himalayan glaciers, rising sea levels, tsunamis and unprecedented droughts in some regions with attendant floods in others, has already witnessed much tumult in its short history of under a decade.