A "leaked" World Bank "confidential" report that later proved to be a bit off the mark is still making the rounds, including being referred to by the Grocery Gang and it's hip-pocket economists as believable. The real and more correct report the World Bank promised to hurry out the door late last week hasn't yet appeared.
The hubbub began with an article in the U.K. newspaper The Guardian, which claimed to have gotten a hold of a "confidential" report that said biofuels like ethanol are responsible for 75 percent of the global increase in food prices. And the reason the report was still secret was political and involved the Bush Administration. The article didn't mention high energy prices and claimed drought and increased demand played only a minor role.
It turns out the draft report was a "working document" and wasn't a secret at all. The Wall Street Journal, which hasn't exactly been friendly to biofuels, saw the working document and concluded that it is "clear that the headline figure for biofuel’s role in the food crisis was a little overstated in the original article." Other things it noted were at play: low grain stocks, large land use shifts, speculative activity and export bans.
So the original article in The Guardian was a hack job - and not that good of one. But it does provide fodder for the anti-ethanol folks. And that is too bad, because when the real report comes out, it won't have the same attention-getting headlines.
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