Crops for biofuel contribute to rocketing food prices

Panama commentators advocating the conversion of crops into biofuels to combating rising fuel prices, might want to read a report published by the UN.

 Computer modeling that has been accurately predicting food prices shows that investor speculation in commodity futures, combined with the conversion of crops into biofuels, will cause food prices to skyrocket in 2013, leading to widespread hunger, social unrest and death across the developing world.

 "Once people understand that markets are not always in equilibrium and that buying futures can affect real prices, we hope they will take action," said Yaneer Bar-Yam, president of the New England Complex Systems Institute.