People in Swaziland are starving, while the government there is still perfectly willing to turn perfectly good crops into ethanol for export:

Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava. The government has allocated several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production in the district of Lavumisa, which happens to be the place worst hit by drought. It would surely be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks. Doubtless a team of development consultants is already doing the sums.
...
The cost of rice has risen by 20% over the past year, maize by 50%, wheat by 100%. Biofuels aren't entirely to blame - by taking land out of food production they exacerbate the effects of bad harvests and rising demand - but almost all the major agencies are now warning against expansion. And almost all the major governments are ignoring them.

They turn away because biofuels offer a means of avoiding hard political choices. They create the impression that governments can cut carbon emissions and - as Ruth Kelly, the British transport secretary, announced last week - keep expanding the transport networks.

Not like I haven't said this again, and again:

It is not only stupid, but rather dangerous, to tie our transportation infrastructure to a vital food stuff.  When the supply of oil decreases, and the price increases, people are forced to make a choice.  Do I pay more for the same amount of gasoline, or do I drive less and conserve?  In fact, in the last year our demand for oil actually decreased.  Although it was a less than one percent decrease, it was the first time our consumption had decreased at all in years.  But with oil, that's the only choice you'd have to make... do I drive less or not.

If we tie our transportation infrastructure to something that is also used for food, our choice becomes much more stark when prices increase.  The question will become, should I eat today or not.  That's not a smart idea.

But hey, at least we'll have cut our carbon emissions by a fraction of a percent using ethanol, which will have no measurable effect on any global warming.  The environmentalists calculus right now seems to be that it's worthwhile killing people today, in exchange for maybe saving people tomorrow.  I just don't understand their math.