Jean Ziegler of the United Nation’s Right to Food Program has claimed that biofuels are a crime against humanity. Ziegler has called for a global five year moratorium on the production of biofuels to avert what he is calling a growing "catastrophe" for the poor. He has also been quoted as claiming that within those five years "it will be possible to make biofuel and biodiesel from agricultural waste'' rather than wheat, corn, sugar cane and other food crops".

For a start, today’s biodiesel boom was jump started by the soybean growers associations. They needed to help find new ways to use the waste product soybean oil. Soybeans are generally crushed and the meal or cake is used for many products including livestock feed. The crushers of soybean in the US had a glut of soybean oil. Other feedstock for biodiesel includes waste vegetable oil, and yellow grease. Thus making biodiesel pretty much non-competitive with the dinner table.

In the US, ethanol is currently being produced from corn crops. Many farmers have put in extra acres of land in corn in hopes of making a bit of a profit for a change with such a strong market for corn. However, before you go trying to throw American corn and ethanol producers under the bus, let's look at the root of the problem, and it is not biofuel production.

A terribly weak dollar has made for a rough ride economically in the US for everybody. Crude oil at nearly $120.00 a barrel has made all the inputs for farming shoot through the roof. Hell, if it was not for biofuels there would be a lot less land in any production this year. Mr. Ziegler should be on his knees thanking God that biofuels production is where it is at or we would really be hitting the wall of a food crisis.

Let’s also talk of decades’ worth of bad international economic and agricultural policy. The industrial world has moved the rest of the world towards growing for western markets and away from building local markets to feed the people where they are. These kinds of policies have had devastating affects on global agriculture and have resulted in moving thousands upon thousands of people from rural agricultural lifestyles to adding to the already staggering number of urban poor world wide.

So instead of trashing biofuels and those who are truly helping make the world a better place by producing them. Let’s start a dialogue about the real culprits plaguing the poor around the world in a way that can actually fix some problems. Instead of encouraging agribusiness we push agriculture.

It simply does not matter how you cook it, you cannot eat cash. Help build national sustainable agriculture in every corner of the world, encouraging biofuels production for local markets. This should be our number one priority. If we want to solve the hunger problem in the world we start by building local agricultural markets and we build from there.

We cannot sacrifice what is good for what is perfect. Is corn-based ethanol a silver bullet for the world’s energy needs? No, but it is also not the culprit in any food crisis we might be facing. Corn ethanol is a step in the right direction it is , however, up to us to keep our feet on the right path to a more sustainable future based on healthy agricultural practices to supply food and fuel everyone.