As global food prices steadily rise, some are pointing fingers to the biofuel industry as one of the main culprits behind the staggering increase in food prices.

However, despite criticism, the next generation fuel industry continues to push forward on the promise of producing sustainable fuel alternatives.

Cleantech Group spoke with several industry insiders for their take on the heated food-versus-fuel debate to find out how they are working to make biofuels part of the solution.

Many biofuel industry insiders agree they find it hard to blame one factor in the equation. “A lot of people want to make this a simple story, but you’re talking about a lot of global demand and trade issues that make it complicated,” said Jonathan Wolfson, CEO of San Francisco-based Solazyme.

The developer of algal oil-based biofuels (more traditionally known as third-generation biofuels), develops non-food based biofuels and edible oils from their algal-growing technology.

The synthetic biology company, which recently signed a biodiesel feedstock development and testing agreement with Chevron Technology Ventures, a division of San Ramon, Calif.’s Chevron (NYSE: CVX), believes the answer to creating a suitable alternative fuel remains simple: make something with a low carbon footprint (they grow their algae in the dark) that gives back in more ways than one.

“As the price of oil goes up, so does the price of food,” continued Wolfson. “Growing populations and changing populations where less people are in the poorest class lead to the increase of daily diets—all of which ultimately contribute to the rise in food and fuel costs.”

Seattle-based Targeted Growth, a first-generation biofuel company focusing on creating higher yields for biofuels and crops, firmly believes there is an answer to producing more feedstocks and crops without using more land.

Targeted Growth CEO Tom Todaro said he thinks the foot shortage problem is a demand side issue, noting the growing global population and expanding middle class in China and India.

“People are thinking about the food shortage problem two-dimensionally when it is a three-dimensional issue. The best solution is to get more food from existing acres,” said Todaro.

Last November the company announced a joint venture with Houston, Texas-based biodiesel firm Green Earth Fuels to produce camelina biodiesel, which according to Todaro, requires minimal input—“it doesn’t take much water or fertilizer, its very cheap to farm, and yields good oil for biodiesel.”

With the biofuel industry continuing to make technological advances such as producing algal oil for both biofuel and edible oils, ensuring higher crop yields on existing land and using wood chips and forest residue to help with the shortage on the supply of the problem, all agree that the current debate is actually a boon to their niche of the biofuel industry.

“The debate has been more helpful than harmful to Choren’s process of developing biofuel,” agreed Christopher Peters, VP of Finance for Choren USA.

Last month the Freiberg, Germany-based Choren Industries announced the completion of the building stage of its Beta BTL plant, which it claims is the world’s first commercial synthetic biofuel production plant. Choren says it has a seven year supply of forest residue and wood chips to make the alternative fuel.

The reality, speakers suggest, is several factors overall are causing the rise in food costs—a rising global population, a growing middle class in China and India, several years of drought in Australia, the deflation of the dollar and the ever increasing cost of oil—all of which are supply-side and demand-side issues.

Energy industry veteran Robert Rapier points to one simple answer for the global conundrum: global fuel usage needs to dramatically decrease, especially in the U.S. “I firmly believe is that we need to reign in the usage of oil. That’s the first thing,” said Rapier. “It’s going to take supply-side solutions and demand-side solutions.”

Earlier this month, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization published that the rise in cost of major grains in the past year has had more to do with below-average yields and drought, and less to do with food being diverted to biofuels.

“One of the problems is that people don’t appreciate how much oil we really use and how energy-dense that oil is,” continued Rapier. “There is no way to produce enough fuel to do what we’re doing today.”