Biofuel revolutionaries see plant power as a way to break America's dependence on foreign oil, and produce auto fuel that doesn't kill the climate. Opponents dismiss ethanol gas distilled from crops like corn for driving up food prices without saving the earth.
Corn-based biofuel costs $81 a barrel, so a billion hungry people hate turning the corn harvest into fuel. Producers profit from converting corn to biofuel because the US government provides a $1 per gallon tax break. The 5 billion gallons of corn ethanol produced by the U.S. in 2006 has already pushed corn prices to record highs.
Corn is used directly by the food industry in things like corn flakes. It is also widely used for feeding animals like pigs and chickens. Food companies warn that high corn prices hit everyone's grocery bills. In Mexico, there have been street demonstrations about the rising cost of corn tortillas. In Illinois, the price of agricultural land has started to rise. That will eventually feed into the cost of other agricultural commodities. Sam Martin puts it succinctly. "I think that cheap food is history," he says.