A “silent tsunami” unleashed by the food crisis threatens the lives of 100 million of the world’s poorest people, the United Nations warned today.

And being rich is no guarantee of insulation from the food crisis. The Times reports that Japan has become the first industrialized nation to run out of butter.

“Why are food prices high?” asks Bill Bonner in The Daily Reckoning.”Normal agricultural cycles, is one reason we gave yesterday.

“Another is the increasing worldwide demand.

“Here’s a third reason – biofuels. On Monday, Britain passed a law requiring that 2% of fuel come from plants (actually, all of it is believed to come from plants…but oil, gas and coal have had millions of years to compress and ferment.) Since Britain doesn’t produce enough biofuel to meet the quota…she actually has to import the stuff on ships from America. Not only does it take more energy to produce the fuel than it generates…the Brits add the cost of shipping it across the Atlantic. But as we keep saying, there’s no problem so awful that politicians can find a way to make worse.”