Posted on 02/20/2008 7:14:04 PM PST by BGHater
The pending global food crisis is due, in part, to a rich twist of irony: One of the factors driving up the price of T-bone steak, a dozen eggs and a carton of milk is a perfectly edible vegetable, a staple of many diets --corn.
Adding to the irony, we're growing more corn than ever before. We're just not eating it.
Corn is being diverted from human consumption, kicking off a domino effect of problems tied to food prices. It starts with ethanol produced from corn, which optimists hope will help solve the U.S. reliance on foreign oil, as well as provide a fuel that burns cleaner.
"The U.S. is now using more corn for production of ethanol than our entire crop in Canada," says Kurt Klein, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Lethbridge. "It's huge."
And it is going to get bigger. In 2000, world production of ethanol totalled 20 billion litres. In 2007, world production climbed to 60 billion litres. In the month of January alone, six billion new litres of ethanol were produced in the United States, Mr. Klein says.
Scores of ethanol plants are under construction and as a result, Mr. Klein predicts that the United States will produce 52 billion litres of the fuel in 2008. When all the plants are running, the United States could produce twice as much corn for ethanol as Canada's total crop production -- wheat, barley, canola?everything.
This has huge implications for global food supplies. The amount of corn it takes to produce 75 litres of ethanol-- roughly a tank of fuel-- is enough corn to feed one person on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet for a year, Mr. Klein said.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the relationship between corn and rising food prices. As corn prices rise, farmers plant more corn and fewer fields of wheat, barley, soybean, canola and anything else that sprouts from the ground. Mr. Klein, who seeded his farm to canola last year, notes that soy and canola prices have doubled in the past year-and-a-half while the price of wheat is up 80%.
"Without ethanol, we would not be seeing this kind of spike in cereals," Mr. Klein says. Soy, for example, is used in two-thirds of processed foods. Consumers can expect to be footing the bill for these suddenly expensive grains.
At the same time, the cost of rump roasts, chicken wings and milk is also climbing because of ethanol production. Corn is the main ingredient in animal feed, and as corn prices go up, so does the cost of feeding livestock.
While technological advances created this ethanol conundrum, Mr. Klein does not expect a new solution to emerge. "This looks like it is going to be permanent," he says.
IBTFB!
Corn=Ethanol=Scam
I wish I could know more about how this affects food prices worldwide.
Other countries don’t ship corn our way but I gather we (used) to ship a lot of ours to foreign markets?
I think last year was the first year that we now import more food than we export.
In Before The Fake Blond? But, that’s impossible, isn’t it?
Eggs are nearly $2 a dozen. It doesn’t make much sense to burn your food.
Had Hillary’s husband begun drilling in ANWAR, we would be getting millions of barrels of oil from there today. Why doesn’t anyone ever ask her why she and her husband should not be held accountable for $100/bbl oil and $3.25/gal gas?
Corn + government money = screw the people at the taxpayer AND the consumer levels
If they would eliminate the government subsidies, 95% of the ethanol plants would shut down overnight.
Now all science has to do is find a way to make oil edible to solve the corn shortage problem.
Exactly!
Thank you!
It is a SCAM.
There is NO EVIDENCE that carbon dioxide is causing “global warming” either. But, be prepared to pay and ENERGY TAX for it and ALL fossil fuel prices will rise accordingly.
I heard on the news tonight that wheat prices are skyrocketing. Which means prices of bread, pastas, will increase a lot. Because they are converting wheat fields to corn fields.
Corn belongs on my dinner plate, not my gas tank.
It is really going to have to go some... 
to be as crude as Bill Clinton!
Bush bought into this one too and we are paying for it at the grocery store.
Seems like people here are against the free market. OK, so ethanol is subsidized at $0.51/gallon. Remove the subsidy, and let the market work.
Quit bitching about the cost of food, and take a look at the cost of gasoline. How high does the price of gas have to get before people wake up and realize that we need an alternative?
At current prices, ethanol is close to if not competitive with gasoline. And the cost goes to farmers rather than oil sheiks bent on our destruction.
In a free market, high costs stimulates more production. That’s a good thing.
Read the book Energy Victory by Robert Zubrin. And read this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1970459/posts
Millions are going to starve because of Al Gore.
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