A yellowed cob of drying corn with the notation of "48 miles per kernel" is the feature image in BASF's coloured advertisement on the back cover of Newsweek magazine (Mar. 3/08). Farther down the page, among other carefully chosen words, the chemical company proudly concludes, "So it is now possible to improve corn supplies for ethanol production without reducing the crops intended for the kitchen table."

The preposterous claim of this single advertisement summarizes the biofuel fiasco that is now stressing the world's food supply, threatening millions with starvation, and probably causing more environmental harm than good. The ill considered energy-conversion strategy is a complex amalgam of myopic politics, exaggerated optimism and rampant paranoia mixed with generous allocations of misleading claims, premature implementation, self-serving rationalization and unmitigated opportunism. Even worse, the project for converting grain to ethanol — food to fuel — is contemptuous of humanity's food needs.

Many countries are abandoning the pretence that converting food to fuel is a sensible way of meeting the dual challenges of reducing dependence on shrinking oil supplies and cutting the global warming effects of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. Canada, however, continues with its goal of replacing 5% of its gasoline with "renewable content" by 2010. But the world's big problem is the United States.

With the realization that "America is addicted to oil", the Bush administration has set an ambitious goal of replacing 15% of the nation's gasoline consumption with ethanol by 2015. To this end, its vast corn output is now being diverted to the production of biofuel. Aside from the futility of trying to reach this objective — studies show that 43% of US farmland would be needed to produce just 10% of its gasoline and diesel needs — the effort is causing chaos in international food markets because the US produces about 40% of the world's corn and accounts for about 70% of its exports.

America's ethanol program, funded by $6 billion in government subsidies, is having two major effects. Within the US, the dollar value of corn has more than doubled, forcing up the cost of the hundreds of food products that use it as an ingredient. The cost of feeding all livestock has risen, increasing the price of poultry, beef, pork, and virtually all dairy products. Then, because the subsidies have made corn farming so lucrative, American farmers are abandoning other grains in favour of this raw material for ethanol. Reduced growing of these grains is forcing up prices, further increasing food costs.

Outside the United States, the sudden shortage of corn for food is having even more serious effects. For the past five of six years, global consumption of grains has exceeded production due to rising human populations and higher meat consumption in diets. Also, grain yields have been falling because of extreme weather events — Australia, for example, a major world producer, has lost 40% of its production due to unprecedented droughts.

The compounding effect has created an unprecedented rise in global food prices. The Economist (Dec. 8/07) notes that its "food-price index is higher today than at any time since it was created in 1845. Even in real terms, prices have jumped by 75% since 2005." Everything edible from German beer to Italian pasta has become more expensive. Food riots have occurred in Mexico, Mali, Pakistan, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and China. The surplus grain on the planet has fallen to a record low — a 53-day supply.

High demand, bad weather, changing climate, degraded soil, rising population and higher eating habits have all contributed to the present rise in global food costs. The last thing needed is America's diversion of at least 14 millions tonnes of corn from food use to ethanol production. A study by two Canadian researchers at the University of Laval in Quebec (Globe & Mail, Oct. 30/07), found that all the corn production in the US, if converted to ethanol, would only reduce gasoline consumption by about 3.5%, almost the amount that could be saved by inflating all vehicle tires to their proper pressure.

So the billion poor people of the planet come closer to starvation because of a pointless ethanol project. But the rich are touched, too. In Vancouver, for example, the price to bakers of a 20 kg bag of flour has risen from $12.96 to $21.29 in five months — it's soon expected to be $27.00, adding nearly a dollar to the cost of a loaf of bread.

And for this ill-conceived food-to-fuel project, what does anyone gain? Drivers get the illusion of going green, if they can overlook the added human suffering and the social and military costs from the resulting political instability. Farmers are making more money, although a few are bothered by conscience when they consider using their farmland to power vehicles that are almost universally too large and too inefficient — they want the pride of growing food, not fuel. But mostly everyone else and everything else loses.

When all factors are considered, most studies show little net carbon dioxide benefit from converting grains to ethanol. The calculations look worse when weighing the loss of ecologically-valuable, carbon-sequestering forests that are being cut to provide farmland for biofuel production. And then, as a final affront to questionable benefits, new studies show that about 4% of the fossil-fuel-derived nitrogen fertilizer used to grow grain crops escapes into the air as nitrous oxide, a gas that is 100 times more heating than carbon dioxide.

Oh, and what of BASF's claim of "48 miles per kernel"? Far enough from reality to be blatantly ludicrous.