Freshly Green has touched on the expected effects of biofuel on food prices before. As more agricultural land is shifted to producing biofuels food crops become scarcer and, consequently, more expensive.

It appears that this is now becoming quite evident in Italy, specifically in the prices for pasta in Italy. To make good pasta high quality durum wheat is needed. Italy itself is one of the largest producers of this grain, but the level of demand means inputs are still needed.

Unfortunately for the Italians durum wheat is also popular source material for production of biofuels, driving up demand. And to complicate matters still further some Mediterranean wheat-growing areas are suffering reduced productivity because of global warming.

Read more on this subject from the BBC