But WA Agriculture Minister Kim Chance disagrees and has called for a deeper understanding and analysis of all the factors in the food-versus-biofuel debate.

A large portion of negative media attention is fixed on the biofuels industry which uses basic food commodities - maize, sugar cane or vegetable oil - to make the fuel.

As a result, public sympathy is shifting away from the practice in the face of starving populations.

Mr Chance said this week, it is wrong to hold biofuels responsible for recent global food shortages when other factors are also impacting on the heavily strained supply and demand equation in the world’s food chain.

Anyone who makes biofuels solely responsible for causing recent riots in food-strapped countries is merely using crude economic arguments to reach that conclusion.

"It is just nonsense to say that food is being taken out of the mouths of poor people and turned into fuel," Mr Chance said.

"It does not stand up to any deeper analysis.

"All the arguments I have heard so far have used really crude analysis.

"They have said taking food out of the cycle and putting it into cars is the cause for the high prices we have now.

"But when you go beyond that crude economic analysis and say ‘how come rice has seen the fastest rise of all the grains?’, it actually makes nonsense of the assertion."