For Germany’s beer drinkers, their beloved beverage — often dubbed ‘liquid bread’ because it is a basic ingredient of many Germans’ daily diet — is, according to a wire story, getting more expensive as farmers abandon barley to plant other, subsidized crops for sale as environmentally friendly biofuels.

Helmut Erdmann, director of the family-owned Ayinger brewery in Aying, nestled between Bavaria’s rolling hills and dark forests with the towering Alps on the far horizon, was quoted as saying, "Beer prices are a very emotional issue in Germany – people expect it to be as inexpensive as other basic staples like eggs, bread and milk. With the current spike in barley prices, we won’t be able to avoid a price increase of our beer any longer."

The story notes that in the last two years, the price of barley has doubled to about US$270 per tonne as farmers plant more crops such as rapeseed and corn that can be turned into ethanol or biodiesel. As a result, the price for the key ingredient in beer — barley malt, or barley that has been allowed to germinate — has soared by more than 40 per cent, to around 385 euros or $520 per tonne, from around 270 euros a tonne two years ago.

Ben and I share the German’s frustration.

As do many of us at the International Food Safety Network (iFSN).