At Rome Food Summit, U.S. Defends Corn-Based Ethanols. By Tracy Wilkinson, LATimes, June 5, 2008. "[At the U.N. emergency summit on food in Rome] Bush administration officials Wednesday found themselves on the defensive on... policies [ranging] from biofuel production to genetic engineering and subsidies. Delegates clashed... over how much [to] blame... biofuels for the meteoric rise in food prices. The U.S.... plans to allocate about a quarter of its corn crop to the lucrative production of ethanol. But many other nations and numerous aid agencies contend that too much food is ending up in fuel tanks and not on dinner tables, deepening a threat of global starvation. Agriculture Secretary Edward T. Schafer, leading the U.S. delegation... acknowledged that a struggle was underway to reach compromise language on the biofuels issue. Drafts of a final summit declaration... [recommend] 'further studies'... [and are] hardly viewed as... decisive... Finding consensus on biofuels... had been one of the goals outlined by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in opening the summit. Schafer maintains that bumper U.S. crops provide plenty of corn for both eating and filling tanks... [and that] biofuels account for no more than 3% of the hike in prices of commodities... American officials are also using the summit to promote genetic engineering as a way to boost food production by increasing crop yields, creating drought-resistant strains and fighting diseases such as stem rust in wheat."
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