Krugman and Corn

There is a food crisis on the horizon, says Paul Krugman, and unfortunately there are no simple answers. Most problematic is that food prices have been rising across the board, and when the prices of "basics" rise, this hurts poor consumers the most. Krugman works through the two obvious (and related) reasons: growing consumption rates in developing countries and rising oil prices. He also blames global warming for the "bad weather" problems in Australia and certain African countries (a bit of a stretch, but I'll let it go).

After a series of finger pointing, Krugman gives us the biggest culprit: biofuels. After giving the basic criticisms of biofuel efficiency and production, comes to the conclusion that we need to push back on biofuels. Really? This rash thinking seems to confuse short-term problems with possible (probable?) long-term benefits. Sure, biofuels may not be incredibly efficient now, but they are nearly on par with petroleum-based fuels in terms of cost. Given time and research, the prospects of biofuels may be well worth the food price destabilization that it might have caused (tough, I know, when people are starving...). Krugman too hastily blames biofuels then calls for the outright abandonment of their use as the solution. That just doesn't make any sense to me. I think there are other ways to buffer the poor from increasing food prices without crushing one of our best hopes for oil independence in the future.