The global food crisis could continue to wash up at Indian shores as well, with the World Development Report 2008, released on Friday, predicting that cereal production would have to increase by 50% by 2030 to meet the escalating worldwide demand. The increasing shift towards bio fuel, its warned, could only add to the crisis. India has once deferred wheat imports with global prices hitting an all-time high and according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations, the continuing strong demand for cereals was putting pressure on international prices. International wheat prices in January were recorded at 83% over the same period last year. The WDR 2008, focusing on agriculture and development, has warned that the long-term downward trend in food prices would also drift upwards and add to food insecurity. For India, right now placed only on the margins of the global bio fuel trade, still jostling with its national bio fuel policy, any increased dependency on imports could be the key source of economic and political trouble. With nine-odd state elections slated for 2008 besides the big theatre too seeming close, the UPA government is bound to walk the tightrope of ensuring upwardly revised support prices for farmers as well as keeping consumer prices in check. The potential conflict between food and fuel is bound to increase in the days to come, the report warned. Recommending against distortionary incentives to bio fuels, something a group of ministers is still contending with in India, the WDR pointed out diversion of grains from the table may have at one level created a food crisis but have not been able to solve the fuel crisis at the current levels of technology. "The grain required to (once) fill the tank of a sports utility vehicle with ethanol could feed one person for a year... in 2006-07, around onefifth of the US maize harvest was used for ethanol but displaced only about 3% of gasoline consumption,' it said.