“As financial markets have tumbled, food prices have soared,” Mr. Zoellick said. “Since 2005 the prices of staples have jumped 80 percent.”
The United States has been criticized for pressing for the use of biofuels, especially corn-based ethanol, as a way to reduce oil consumption and to keep corn prices high for farmers. But the same prices that please farmers are causing shortages in basic grains used for food in the developing world." - New York Times 4/16/2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/world/europe/16food.html?ref=world

What a perfect example of a wicked dilemma.

"Wheat prices have risen by 130 percent since March of last year, and soy prices have risen 87 percent, the United Nations said, with food now representing 60 percent to 80 percent of consumer spending in developing countries. In general, the World Bank has said that food prices have climbed about 83 percent worldwide over the past three years."

How do we answer the call for feeding the hungry while also developing alternative fuels? Why has it become an either/or situation? What are the other alternatives? Why has the quest for alternate fuel in this country led us back to corn?

I can't help wonder how the complexity of such situations gets funneled down into a black or white scenario where neither side is able to give way on the importance of their issue. There are profound forces at work - drought that continues to plague parts of our world; a government here in the US that loves to subsidize corporate agriculture while our own economy reverberates with the lack of security in our financial markets. We don't even need to mention the billions of dollars that are pouring into a pipe dream of democracy in Iraq.

It all feels inter-related to me. There are ways that all of these critical issues are linked and unless we can slowly start peeling back the layers of how decisions are made - how and where we spend our money - this chaos will only continue.