UPDATE 1-Ethanol boom could hurt world's poor - expert | Reuters.com: "'What gets lost in this debate is the fact that supply is rising at a near parallel rate with demand,' Geoff Cooper, spokesman for the National Corn Growers Association, said in an e-mail.
Cooper agreed that expected ethanol demand has helped boost corn prices, but said that today's prices were comparable to those seen in the 1970s, the late 1980s and early 1990s.
He also said that as grain prices rise, it spurs corn farmers to grow more.
Brown said instead of making more conventional ethanol, vehicle fuel consumption should be boosted, through higher vehicle mileage and the manufacturing of gasoline-electric hybrid cars.
An emerging high-tech fuel called cellulosic ethanol made from tough woody plants, such as switchgrass and poplar, that grow on land unfit for farming, could also be part of the solution, said Brown."