Milton Freidman is said to have defined economics in its simplest form with the expression, “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” Recent energy price increases have raised the production cost of food, making that lunch even more expensive. In addition, high energy prices have created incentives for several countries to turn directly to agriculture as a source of energy, extracting alcohol from several crops, including sugar cane and corn. Continued political instability in the Middle East intensifies this interest in domestic alternatives to oil. But most countries do not have the agricultural ability to produce a significant portion of liquidfuel needs and still provide adequate food supplies. This raises concern about how agricultural resources should be used. The resulting food/fuel choice depends on a unique set of conditions in each country.

The United States has a key role to play in both energy and food matters. The U.S. consumes almost a third of all petroleum produced in the world, imports almost 50 per cent of its domestic petroleum needs, and is the major exporter of agricultural products. The sheer magnitude of both the U.S.'demand for liquid fuels and its share of world agricultural trade makes U.S. policy choices on the food/fuel interface of critical importance domestically and in other areas as well.