DEL MAR – Rising food prices are caused by expensive fuel and increased food consumption, not by the use of corn to develop ethanol, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture said yesterday.

Gas prices have pushed up the cost of food production – from fueling tractors to transporting grains and meat, Ed Schafer said during a visit to the Del Mar Fairgrounds. He talked to 4H members and Future Farmers of America before holding a news conference.

Ethanol production is responsible for only 3 percent of the projected 43 percent increase in global food prices this year, he said.

Another reason for the prices is the amount of food consumed by the world.

In the United States, for instance, corn production has increased 50 percent over the past 15 years, but wheat production has not kept pace with demand, he said.

“Wheat is at a 60-year low in stocks,” Schafer said.

To help meet the goal of doubling food production by 2050, he said the United States must drill for offshore oil, produce ethanol and bio fuels more effectively, and develop better fertilizers and more effective farming methods.

Schafer also said production of engineered foods that are safe for consumption can be a solution.

The federal government has released 35 million acres of fallow farmland from its environmental conservation program so that farmers can use it for cattle-grazing or hay-harvesting to bring down the cost of cattle feed and meat.

On the latest outbreak of tomato-borne salmonella, Schafer said the federal government will develop chemicals to kill bacteria and fungi to combat outbreaks. He declined to specify which regions produced the contaminated tomatoes, but said they did not come from California or Baja California.

Schafer also urged the young people to become engineers and scientists because those disciplines are the backbone of agricultural advance.

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Angela Lau: (760) 737-7575; angela.lau@uniontrib.com