<h1>Biofuel incentives and cropping patterns risk: administered ethanol pricing and mandates reshape cropping incentives, requiring policy recalibration</h1> The text examines risks that biofuel mandates and feedstock-differentiated administered ethanol pricing create persistent distortions in cropping patterns and food markets by favouring certain crops. It explains that assured offtake and higher administered prices for specific feedstocks have strengthened price signals for maize, expanding area and output while pulses, millets and some oilseeds stagnated; this effect is reinforced by technological yield gains. The piece prescribes periodic policy recalibration, yield-raising measures for pulses and oilseeds, and targeted, regionally aligned expansion of ethanol feedstocks to balance energy objectives with food and nutritional security.