Biofuels production Food price Costs

ergy consumption in the transport sector in the last two centuries caused ng greenhouse gas emissions, growing energy dependency and supply inse-lve r cu flow istory nt type ere ce ergy. unstable countries. The core objective of this paper is to investigate whether the current increases of biofuels production had a significant impact on the development of agricultural commodity (feedstock) prices. The litres, which is equal to 1.8 % of total global transport fuel consumption in energy terms. The highest share of biofuels in total transport fuels demand in 2007 was in Brazil and the USA, 20 % and 3 % respectively, see Fig. 1. Yet, the major feedstocks currently used for biofuels production are directly or indirectly used for food production and there are claims that biofuels production increases significantly the prices of feedstocks and thereby of food (e.g. [4e6]). The major feedstocks for biofuels are corn, wheat, barley, sugarcane, rapeseed, soybea