The enormous volume of corn required by the ethanol industry is sending shock waves through the food system. (The United States accounts for some 40 percent of the world's total corn production and over half of all corn exports.) In March 2007, corn futures rose to over $4.38 a bushel, the highest level in ten years. Wheat and rice prices have also surged to decade highs, because even as those grains are increasingly being used as substitutes for corn, farmers are planting more acres with corn and fewer acres with other crops.
This might sound like nirvana to corn producers, but it is hardly that for consumers, especially in poor developing countries, who will be hit with a double shock if both food prices and oil prices stay high. The World Bank has estimated that in 2001, 2.7 billion people in the world were living on the equivalent of less than $2 a day; to them, even marginal increases in the cost of staple grains could be devastating. filling the 25-gallon tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires over 450 pounds of corn -- which contains enough calories to feed one person for a year. By putting pressure on global supplies of edible crops, the surge in ethanol production will translate into higher prices for both processed and staple foods around the world. Biofuels have tied oil and food prices together in ways that could profoundly upset the relationships between food producers, consumers, and nations in the years ahead, with potentially devastating implications for both global poverty and food security.
It's the ultimate left-wing dilemma - help the poor or save the environment? Read the whole thing.
4 comments:
And here I was thinking that anti-ethanol crusaders only existed on the left side of the political spectra.
A note on the price of corn... the price is indeed at its highest level in 10 years, perhaps even 40 years. But that's because 40 years ago (without considering inflation) the price of corn was $2.50/bushel. Today its $4.40 at its maximum.
Consider that in the last 40 years the average wage as more than tripled and you can see why this is a nonesense arguement that higher corn prices are causing people to starve. Besides, the higher corn/crop prices go, the more people in poor underdeveloped countries (which are mostly rural) earn.
In any case, with the advances being made in ethanol production to obtain it from so-called 'waste' such as switchgrass and leaves, ethanol can move around this problem.
quite the false dilemma you set up. ethanol is not going to help the environment...but it will starve the poor while creating more profits for agri-business. it is embarassing that it is being sold as an environemtnal initiative.
Ethanol is hard on the environment but an easy way for a politician to put a powerful well funded welfare group in their back pockets.
Not one ounce of ethanol would have ever gotten to market without massive subsidies.
Considering the fact that ethanol requires more energy to create than provides for usage... Ethenol is good for the environment how? Also anyone who eats meat should watch as the price of meat goes up. Much of the grain that is not fit for human consumption is now fed to animals. The production of ethanol will compete for that grain. Higher cost of grain = fewer animals being fed = less meat available = higher cost for available meat.
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