Stuart Rennie, at Global Bioethics Blog, asks whether some news-media reports are fair in depicting biofuels as archvillains in the story of world hunger.

TV reports, he writes, “have been milking the connections between biofuels, rising food prices, and imminent hunger for millions of persons for all they are worth. For some reason, Germans are being interviewed at gas stations that offer biofuels, apparently to show how good intentions can pave the autobahn to hell: the ethanol going into their tanks is pulling food out of the mouths of the poor.”

Some newspaper reports are more nuanced, he says, asking, “to what extent does increased biofuels production impact on food production and rises in global food prices? The answer seems to be: We don’t really know yet.”

Could world hunger also have “to do with existing international trade policies and the subsidized-to-the-teeth agriculture industries in America and Western Europe? Lack of commitment to (god forbid) family planning in developing countries?”

He wonders if biofuels are taking an unfair rap.