Does ethanol raise food prices? Lets check this out. If a bushel of shelled corn comes in at 56lbs and a bushel of corn cost $4.10, what is the cost of corn per pound? Yikes! Only 7 cents a pound! Your one pound box of Corn Flakes has all 7 cents of corn in it! This 1lb box of Corn Flakes can make how many bowels of cereal? Eight?-Ten? Hmm, it seem as if that bowel of cereal for breakfast has 1 cent of corn in it. This data indicates the faster than expected rise in food prices can not be related just to ethanol.
I think a stronger argument can be made that food prices follow to cost of energy. Our mechanized agriculture requires oil for farm equipment, fertilizer and pesticides. So I don't really see ethanol as anything but transformation of solar energy into another liquid fuel.
Bob Wilson