Hello Jeff!

You are right. Bioethanol production already caused famine in Africa as today everybody see (LINK). I have found something that can be a possible solution:

Imagine converting virtually any waste--grass, municipal waste, old tires, wood chips--into fuel for your car. A company called Coskata claims it can do this using a patented bioreactor and anaerobic microbes found in nature (microbes that, although they're not genetically modified, are patented). Factories using this proprietary process could produce ethanol for $1 per gallon or less and sell it for twice that much, Coskata claims.
The bioreactor first phase is essentially an update of old-fashioned gasification, burning the feedstock at up to 4000 degrees Fahrenheit. Some organic materials can be gasified at lower temps. One advantage: Plant fibers also get converted to energy.
Either way, the feedstock is reduced to ash, which has agricultural uses, and carbon monoxide, hydrogen and that nasty greenhouse gas, CO2. Some of the exhaust might need scrubbing, but most of these gases are "fed" to anaerobic bacteria that consume them and emit ethanol as a waste product.
Unlike many cellulosic ethanol start-ups, Coskata doesn't aim to go into ethanol production itself. It wants to sell its processes and colonies of its proprietary bacteria to bigger companies that have the massive capital resources to build cost-intensive production facilities.
A 40,000 gallon/year demonstration plant will be announced on April 24. Then, a new partner would build a production plant making millions of gallons annually. Bolsen says he envisions one more round of drumming up venture capital and eventually an IPO.

(full story)