Last week it was the UN expressing concern about the growing global food crisis. This week it's the IMF and World Bank calling for "an integrated response through policy advice and financial support," following the resignation of Haiti's prime minister due to riots over higher prices for staples like rice and beans.

From the WSJ:

On Sunday, the committee that oversees the World Bank noted that "large groups of poor people are severely affected by high food and energy prices across the developing world." The committee echoed the IMF committee's call for "timely policy and financial support to vulnerable countries" and urged rich countries to be more generous in "immediate support for countries most affected by the high food prices."

The World Bank plans to nearly double its agricultural lending to Africa next year to $800 million, and is urging members to ramp up relief for hard-pressed nations. The World Bank, IMF and big industrialized nations also are pushing for the completion of the Doha global trade talks, though cutting food subsidies in the U.S. and Europe under a trade deal would boost prices of food for impoverished importing nations.

The U.S. was a prime target at the weekend meeting of finance ministers, with many leaders taking shots at U.S. support for corn-based ethanol and other biofuels. "When millions of people are going hungry, it's a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels," said India's finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, in an interview. Turkey's finance minister, Mehmet Simsek, said the use of food for biofuels is "appalling."

Ethanol is quickly being recognized as a poor substitute to fossil fuels by everyone except corn farmers in the Midwest and the presidential candidates pandering to them. A study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development concluded that biofuels "offer a cure [for oil dependence] that is worse than the disease." A National Academy of Sciences study said corn-based ethanol could strain water supplies. The American Lung Association expressed concern about a form of air pollution from burning ethanol in gasoline.

As Obama likes to say about Iraq, we need to be as careful getting out of this environmental (and energy) mess as we were careless getting in, and a heavy reliance on biofuels isn't the answer. Will any of the presidential candidates have the political courage to honestly address this issue going forward? None have so far.