According to a study to be published in the journal Foreign Affairs, the use of increasingly ethanol as a biofuel could threaten feeding 2.7 billion people worldwide who live on less than US $ 2 per day. After the black gold, green gold he will extend the terms of unequal exchange?

"Filling the tank of a 4x4 with 94.5 litres of pure ethanol requires about 204 kg of maize, enough calories to feed a person for one year," write the two professors of economics at the University of Minnesota , and authors of the study.

If oil prices remain at a high level, "the rapid increase in the global production of biofuel will raise the price of corn up by 20% by 2010 and 41% by 2020" , they predicted.

The prices of other foodstuffs, such as rice and wheat, could also be affected by the outbreak, as farmers délaisseront these crops to corn.

However, according to the authors, "the number of people facing food security problems would increase by $ 16 million for each 1% increase in the real price of basic necessities. This means that 1.2 billion people could regularly suffer from hunger by 2025, 600 million more than originally planned. "