Back in November, in Can ethanol replace oil? we mentioned that ?diverting vast amount of agricultural produce from food consumption to ethanol production is unacceptable?the result will be mass starvation.?

In the United States, there is a trend of diverting corn output from food consumption to ethanol production. Needless to say, the result is an increase in corn prices. This price increase had a spill-over effect on neighbouring nations. For Mexico, since they import much of their corn from the US, the price of their staple food, tortilla, recently rose by over 400%. Since tortilla is a main source of calories for many poor Mexicans, we can be sure they would not like it as expressed by their recent protest: Mexicans stage tortilla protest.

We doubt corn has a great future as a fuel.