From Ms Ann Berg.

Sir, As the biofuel debate continues, Leszek Balcerowicz's article on the dangers of statism ("Free marketeers must fend off the statists", April 29) could not be more apropos. Today's mandated diversion of foodstuffs into fuel bears an eerie similarity to Mao Zedong's directive to farmers during the late 1950s to build backyard pig-iron furnaces across China's agricultural regions. Hailed as a drive toward self-sufficiency and modernisation, The Great Leap Forward created the largest man-made famine the world has known, claiming more than 20m lives.