Why do right wingers regard modest welfare payments to single mothers on sink estates as the root cause of the Wests decline, whilst insisting on obscenely large annual welfare cheques to landowners? To be born the son of a farmer is to be born fortunate indeed. No need to worry about GCSEs or 'McJobs'. The price of endless state subsidy should be tenant status. What happened to the free market revolution of the 1980s? Or was it simply squire Toryism all along?

E Skelton, Cardiff, Wales

As someone who regularly visits a 3rd world country (the Philippines) as has recently witnessed people queueing for rice for the first time I can assure you that this is a very real and immediate problem. We just don't know how lucky we all are. There are educated, well mannered, decent people there, people just like you and me, who just don't have enough to eat every day. Of course they don't control population growth as they should and their government system is wholly corrupt but we cannot allow such people to starve. It is not just the debate about house prices being put into perspective. Last week we were getting ourselves excited about artficial food colourings, with the probable consequence that we have to use hugely increased amounts of natural substances to replace them, thus again denying resources to the poor. So little Tommy might have a tantrum, which just might have, by a remote chance, be caused by a food colour, whilst in a poor country a kid dies because he is hungry!

David N House, Cambridge, UK

The attack on biofuels comes from the same people from rich countries whose protectionism, subsidies and drop of the value of agricultural goods versus their industrial and service goods, has been sending farmers to struggle and be put out of business for many decades all over the world. Except naturally in their countries where farmers can run on government funds.
If you prefer to keep burning massive amounts of fossil fuel while dreaming there are other large scale real options today, just don’t complain about global worming and the price of oil (and fertilizers and food transportation).
Nothing but going in global scale to farmers do assist them to get more affordable credit, technology and markets, and them allow them to work and make a living, is going to increase food production in global scale.

Prado, Sao Paulo, Brazil

3 cheers to France. - The Agricultural industry has been abused for the last 60 years.

Quality & assured food supplies are critical to regional economies.

A global agricultural market solves nothing & exposes the entire world to the vagaries of variable weather & climate change.

A European Food Industry needs to be secured - to feed this region - Not Africa or Asia.

Richard, Bucharest,

The idea of using food for fuel is probably the second dumbest idea in the history of mankind; the first being government’s mandating the use of such fuel. Exacerbating this is the fact that cars can be converted to run on hydrogen, when available, and gasoline when not. BMW is test marketing such a car. In the U.S., a private company is working on conversion kits that will do the same for cars already on the road.

The idea of requiring ethanol for fuel when hydrogen can be used is pure madness. I do hope The Times and other legitimate news organizations will investigate and discover why governments are mandating food in the fuel tank.

Monroe, California, U.S.

Radical solution for the world's poor and hungry: have many less children and elect decent governments. Problem sorted.....

The ineffective solution is for the 1st world to feed, clothe and shelter the world's poor and hungry thereby proping up weak and corrupt govenments. Problem continues until the end of the world (sooner rather than later)...

Aden Brill, Hereford, UK

This represents a far more serious problem than global warming due to its immediacy. There won't be much population to worry about global warming if food supplies are not stabilised.

Ken, Fleet, UK

This is just the planet's answer to overpopulation.
Cheap food - more people are born.
As population increases food becomes more scarce thus decreasing the growth in population.
It is just a simple & natural economic cycle.

Kris, London, UK

No great surprise - when the dot com bubble burst, money poured into the property market and pushed up prices, as that bubble is bursting money is pouring into commodity markets, pushing up the price of food and energy!

Rick, Manchester,

This shows what kind of leadership we have in this country. We need to have a vote of no confidence in the goverment!

quote:

"As of tomorrow, all petrol and diesel sold in Britain will have to contain at least 2.5 per cent biofuel from crops."

Alan Wilson, Sheffield,

Biofuels are just another form of cash crop such as coffee, tea etc, which means that developing countries have less land available for growing food.
Whilst it appeared to be a good idea at the time, it is obvious that it was a mistake and action needs to be taken quickly to reverse the trend.

kim domnick, Torquay, UK

How exactly is this going to work? lets presume the rich countries get together and put up some extra cash. They go out on the open market and buy up food to be distributed to the worlds poor. This reduces the amount of food available to those earning just enough to keep there heads above water and so pushes them into food poverty, creating yet another set of problems.

This kind of thinking was fine when we had food mountains in storage which could be dipped into when needed, but we are no longer in this position. World grain stocks are at record lows, and the situation is deteriorating. At the same time we are adding around 70m new mouths to feed each year.

There are only really two solutions, reduce the number of mouths to feed, preferably by birth control, or, redistribute food more fairly between the rich and the poor, neither of which are realistically going to happen. Meanwhile our esteem leaders rush about making noises, while avoiding the elephant in the room.

John Paul, London, UK

To start with lets end the nonsense of bio-fuels for cars. This crazy idea is taking valuable food out of the supply chain and is contributing to driving up prices.

Andrew Brown , derby, uk

Food affordability by the poored on our planet (including those who live in Europe and North America) has NOTHING to do with bio-fuels. There are millions of acres of fallow farmland, including those acres that european farmers are unauthorised to cultivate because of European Union restrictions; there are food surplusses in most OECD countries and a huge surplus capacity.

There is starvation because poor people can not afford all the food they would like to eat, and that includes the fird-world workers that make your sneakers and t-shirts. Pay them enough to eat.

Let's not be Naïve, this speech is a clear manipulation of public opinion against bio-fuels and in favour of oil and petro-dollars.

Rui, Lisbon,

Sheer greed vs. Moral conscience. How would the world cope without money or credit? Bring back the horse and cart.

Stuart, London, UK

Actually most Green organisations have been warning about such issues with biofuels since they appeared. It's a red herring to blame environmentalists. The blame and problem squarely lies with biofuel investors and the unimaginative governments who haven't regulated against biofuels that compete with food crops.

Christiaan Briggs, London, UK

Population of the planet is Approaching 7 Billion this will only get worse

chris, Dublin, Ireland

So. Stop the greedy green rush into biofuels and go back to grain production. Simple.

I don't suppose Gordon Brown or Douglas Alexander had lessons in Figures of Speech, otherwise they might recognise the Oxymoron in their back-to-back positions on Green issues and food prices.

Poor fellows. Poor us. Poor world.

Bill , Suzhou, China

Stop the biofuel switch, build smaller cars and long term, diversify from wheat and rice. And, plant food trees worldwide, on public land.

Peter Ravenscroft, Brisbane, Australia

If it is the ude of wheat for biofuels which is causing higher prices, then stop using it for biofuels. There must be altaernatives!

Michael, Birmingham, England

When I saw the headline I thought it was in the UK. Never mind maybe next month.

Cromwell, Leeds, England

puts the debate about house prices into prospective.

dave, peterborough, uk