text: Recently, about one-third of America?s huge corn crop has been diverted from food and feed into an ultra-costly auto fuel that gives consumers poorer mileage even as it drives up their food costs. The corn ethanol diversion creates an artificial scarcity of farmland, as it attracts more land into corn instead of wheat or other crops?and the price effects are felt globally. In 2008, the ethanol mandate drove food prices up by more than 50 percent worldwide, and triggered food riots in Mexico and several other countries.