There is something obscenely ironic that whilst the poor starve and struggle over soaring food prices, the rich convert food into fuel so they can carry on driving in their large gas-guzzling vehicles.

The rich world is rushing to invest in biofuels as one of the solutions to climate change. Fuels made from corn, sugar, or maize are seen as producing less carbon dioxide than conventional fuels from oil. As Western nations belatedly struggle to come to grips with the daunting challenge of radical reductions in climate changing gases, biofuels offer a theoretical solution.

What biofuels conveniently mean for America and Europe is that they can carry on driving and flying, thinking they have a clean conscience over climate change. Such is their appeal that last year the US Congress mandated a fivefold increase in their use. Europe, too, is committed to raising the share of biofuels in transport from current levels of around 2% to at least 10% by 2020.

The only problem for those who support biofuels is that despite this rush, never a week goes past without further evidence of their harmful effects. These range from rainforest destruction to being partly to blame for rising food costs.

In March, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri was the latest in a long line of people who warned of the problems of biofuels.

Speaking at the European Parliament, he said “We should be very, very careful about coming up with biofuel solutions that have major impact on production of food grains and may have an implication for overall food security.”

Pachauri warned that the rush to convert corn to ethanol in the US was having an adverse knock-on effect on the agricultural sector. A fifth of the US’s corn crop is now used to brew ethanol for motor fuel. As farmers rush to plant corn, the acreage of other crops, particularly soybeans, has been cut. The rocketing demand for corn has also meant the price has gone up. Ironically other critics argue that the process of converting corn into ethanol actually releases more carbon dioxide per gallon than simply burning conventional fuels.

Then last month, Pachauri’s warning was followed by both the Bolivian President Evo Morales and President of Peru, Alan Garcia, who said using land for biofuels was putting food out of reach for the poor. They were responding to Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who had tried to dismiss claims that biofuels are responsible for the recent rise in global food prices.

Also last month, the UN's special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, did not mince his words when blaming biofuels for making the poor starve. "This is silent mass murder,” he said. Last year he said biofuels were “a crime against humanity.”

As the politicians squabble over whether biofuels are to blame for rising food prices, the poor continue to starve and the price of food becomes ever more expensive. Global food prices have increased by 83 percent in the last three years, according to the World Bank. As basic food staples become too expensive to buy for millions, anger has spread rapidly. At least six people were killed in riots over food prices that contributed to the dismissal of Haiti’s prime minister last month. Millions are struggling to survive on the island after food prices have increased 45 percent since the end of 2006.

In Africa, there have been riots in Ivory Coast, and Senegal and Egypt where the military is assisting baking bread. In Mozambique some six people were killed and in Cameroon an estimated 100 killed in protests linked to the food prices. In Burkina Faso, where there were also riots in February over food, the unions have now called for a general strike. In South Africa, there have been protest marches.

Meanwhile in Asia, fifty people were injured after factory workers protested against the food rises near Dhaka. Indonesia has also seen protests, whereas Vietnam has seen panic buying. Pakistan has reintroduced some rationing, while India has banned the export of most rice. The ruling coalition in Malaysia was very nearly ousted by voters who cited food as one of their major concerns. Last week, the Philippine government said it was introducing “rice access cards” for help the poor buy grain.

In Latin America, there have been riots in Mexico, whilst farmers went on strike for three weeks in Argentina. In Peru, farmers blocked key road links. In Europe, Russia, which has seen a six per cent increase in food prices since the beginning of the year, has been forced to freeze the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil.

Coupled with rising oil prices, rising food prices are creating global tension. “This is a perfect storm,” President Elías Antonio Saca of El Salvador told the World Economic Forum on Latin America in Cancún, Mexico last month. “How long can we withstand the situation? We have to feed our people, and commodities are becoming scarce. This scandalous storm might become a hurricane that could upset not only our economies but also the stability of our countries.”

Other voices agree the situation is getting critical. Earlier this month, Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary General warned that the global food crisis could have grave implications for international security, economic growth and social progress. “If not handled properly, this crisis could result in a cascade of others and become a multidimensional problem affecting economic growth, social progress and even political security around the world,” Ban told a conference in Ghana.

Last week, Ban Ki-Moon went further, saying that the UN was setting up a special task-force to address the food shortages, which was designed to avert “social unrest on an unprecedented scale”. Ban said “The first and immediate priority, that we all agree, is that we must feed the hungry”.

A second priority should be to ban biofuels that could be used for food crops. The inescapable fact is that biofuels are partly to blame for the rising food costs. The International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington argues that biofuel production accounts for a quarter to a third of the recent increase in global commodity prices. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations comes up with a slightly smaller figure of biofuels being responsible for between 10 to 15 percent rise in food.

So concerned was it over biofuels impacts that last month, the European Environment advisory panel urged the EU to suspend its 10 per cent goal by 2020. The panel, made up of some of Europe's most prestigious climate scientists, called the 10 percent target “overambitious” whose “unintended effects are difficult to predict and difficult to control.” Laszlo Somlyody, the panel's chairman and a professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics said: “The idea was that we felt we needed to slow down, to analyze the issue carefully and then come back at the problem.”

Rather than slow down, countries in the EU are speeding up. In Britain, new legislation passed last month means that all gasoline must contain at least 2.5 per cent biofuel. The same day that the legislation was passed, one of Britian’s most respected conservation charities, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, condemned the law as “over-hasty” and “utter folly”.

The situation is now getting even more ironic. As many simply cannot afford to eat, the rich world is now squabbling over the huge subsidies it gives its biofuel producers to produce more biofuels. Last week, European biodiesel producers triggered the prospect of a new transatlantic trade war by urging the EU to impose penalties on “unfair” biofuel subsidies from the US.

The subsidy allows US exporters to undercut European rivals by up to a quarter. The subsidy system is also being exploited by ruthless commodity traders, who are actually adding to climate change.

Known as “splash and dash” within the industry, the legal trick makes a mockery of the purpose of biofuels, which are meant to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. The biofuel is being needlessly shipped from Europe to the US and then back again. The traders buy biodiesel on the European market and then ship it to the US. There it is “splashed” with gasoline which means that conventional gasoline is added to the biodiesel so that traders can qualify for the export subsidy. Then the cargo is “dashed” or shipped back to Europe and resold at a subsidized price which then undercuts European producers.

Peter Power, a spokesman for EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, said "We will not under any circumstances tolerate unfair trade." The EU and US are now threatening to take their argument to the World Trade Organisation.

It is also beyond irony that as they say they will not tolerate trade that is unfair to their own industries, they seem content to tolerate the fact that millions of people are slowly dying of hunger….