Nestle blames biofuels for high food prices: Biofuels are blamed for higher food prices.
The head of the world's largest food producer believes high prices are due to the growing of crops for biofuels.
"The time of cheap food prices is over," says Nestle chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe.
He is highly critical of the rise in the production of bio-diesel, saying this puts pressure on food supplies by using land and water that would otherwise be used to grow crops for human or animal consumption.
"If no food was used for fuel, the prices would come down again - that is very clear," he says.
Mr Brabeck-Letmathe says politicians have not understood that the food market and the oil market are the same - they are both calorific markets.
"The only difference is that with the food market you need 2,500 calories per person per day, whereas in the energy market you need 50,000 calories per person," he says.
"It takes about 4,600 litres of water to produce one litre of pure ethane oil if it comes from sugar, and it takes 1,900 litres of water if it comes from palm oil," he says.
"This is not a crisis which might arise in 100 years, it is something which is already here today."
