Petrol or beer?

Comrade Fidel Castro has already warned that the bio-fuel craze would endanger the food harvest and push up food prices to levels unaffordable to the poor. “The transformation of food into energy is a monstrous act”. (Xinhua News Agency: Castro sees transformation of food into energy as monstrous act)

The New York Times also published an in-depth story on bio-fuels: How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor.

Now the powerful constituency of German beer drinkers is also feeling the pinch (The Taipei Times: Trouble brewing as German switch to biofuel raises beer price) Farmers in Germany are increasingly growing subsidized crops used to produce bio-fuels such as ethanol and bio-diesel instead of barley. The scarcity of barley is driving up the price of the key ingredient of beer, ... and ultimately of beer itself.

One could of course start drinking less, but the Germans firmly rule that option out. So something will have to happen to keep the price of a pint of beer reasonable. The organizers of Munich's Oktoberfest have already announced that the price of a one-liter mug would rise 5.5% to 7.90 euro.

German beer drinkers are now demanding an immediate stop to subsidies for biofuels.

If we have to choose between fuel for cars (petrol) and fuel for people (beer), the choice should be clear to all, except perhaps for idiots like Bush, who prefer to drive in a limousine instead of having a beer. The added bonus: the poor of the world will be thankful that food prices will stop rising. Cheers!