Are biofuels not good after all?

A Reuters article quotes the Organization for Economic Coorperation and Development (OECD) which states that biofuels may cause more harm ot the world than fossil fuels. Their issues like primary in rising food prices, inefficiency of biofuels, land diversity, and the environmental costs of agricultural. They do leave out two key issues:

1. A raise in worldwide food prices helps the world's poor. Low prices for food means that the world's poor, who are largely subsistence farmers, have little reward for expanding their production beyond their own needs. A higher worldwide price for food will help Third World farmers raise capital so they can improve their quality of life. This will yield improvements for Third World life.
2. At our current pace, we have less than 100 years of oil in the world. Environmental issues aside, we need a replacement for this and biofuel is the only real alternative we currently have.

Biofuels may harm more than help
Reuters

PARIS - Biofuels, championed for reducing energy reliance, boosting farm revenues and helping fight climate change, may in fact hurt the environment and push up food prices, a study suggested on Tuesday.

In a report on the impact of biofuels, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said biofuels may "offer a cure that is worse than the disease they seek to heal."

"The current push to expand the use of biofuels is creating unsustainable tensions that will disrupt markets without generating significant environmental benefits," the OECD said.

"When acidification, fertilizer use, biodiversity loss and toxicity of agricultural pesticides are taken into account, the overall environmental impacts of ethanol and biodiesel can very easily exceed those of petrol and mineral diesel," it added.

The OECD therefore called on governments to cut their subsidies for the sector and instead encourage research into technologies that would avoid competing for land use with food production.