"Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases," the Guardian quoted the leaked World Bank report earlier this month.

The 75-percent figure sharply contradicted claims by the US government, that biofuels contribute less than 3 percent to food price hikes.

The report argued that the European Union and US drive for biofuels has by far the largest impact on food supply and prices.

The use of agricultural products, in particular maize, wheat, and vegetable oil, as feedstock for biofuel production has expanded dramatically in recent years, Stefan Tangermann, director of the Trade and Agriculture of the OECD, wrote in an article recently posted on policy analysis portal www.voxeu.com.

Between 2005 and last year, the period when food prices began to spike, nearly 60 percent of the growth in global consumption of cereals and vegetable oils was due to biofuels, figures showed.

More specifically, experts have said that biofuels in North America and Europe cannot be produced, and would be very little used in the absence of government support such as subsidies, tax breaks and tariffs - policies to support biofules, experts say, that have contributed greatly to the rise in global food prices.

Accusing China, India and other developing nations of eating too much meat is more a way for their critics to seek psychological rectitude rather than economic sense, experts have said, if not an attempt to fend off criticism of costly and unsustainable grain-based biofuel programs.

(China Daily July 29, 2008)