Posted on 04/26/2008 4:36:21 AM PDT by paltz
Reporting on the food crisis in Haiti last week, The Washington Times introduced its readership to the term "Clorox hunger," described as "a hunger so painful it feels like your stomach is being eaten by bleach or battery acid." It's horrifying stuff. But that's what the global food crisis -- which many economists now believe will push 100 million people into "absolute poverty," and which will do far worse to those already below the absolute poverty line -- looks like. Higher food prices mean less food. In America, that's an annoyance. In other countries, that's a death sentence. And it's in no small part our fault.
Somewhere between a quarter and a third of the run-up in prices is the product of increased US demand for biofuels. When you demand a lot more corn for energy, there's less of it for food. And as Tom Philpott notes, "When farmers scramble to plant corn to cash in on the ethanol boom, they plant less of other stuff like soy and even wheat, putting upward pressure on their prices."
So what's with the demand for corn? An article in this month's Foreign Affairs, entitled "How Boifuels Could Starve the Poor," lays it out, and shows how the situation could become much worse:
In the United States and other large economies, the ethanol industry is artificially buoyed by government subsidies, minimum production levels, and tax credits. High oil prices over the past few years have made ethanol naturally competitive, but the U.S. government continues to heavily subsidize corn farmers and ethanol producers. Direct corn subsidies equaled $8.9 billion in 2005. Although these payments will fall in 2006 and 2007 because of high corn prices, they may soon be dwarfed by the panoply of tax credits, grants, and government loans included in energy legislation passed in 2005 and in a pending farm bill designed to support ethanol producers. The federal government already grants ethanol blenders a tax allowance of 51 cents per gallon of ethanol they make, and many states pay out additional subsidies.
Consumption of ethanol in the United States was expected to reach over 6 billion gallons in 2006. (Consumption of biodiesel was expected to be about 250 million gallons.) In 2005, the U.S. government mandated the use of 7.5 billion gallons of biofuels per year by 2012; in early 2007, 37 governors proposed raising that figure to 12 billion gallons by 2010; and last January, President Bush raised it further, to 35 billion gallons by 2017. Six billion gallons of ethanol are needed every year to replace the fuel additive known as MTBE, which is being phased out due to its polluting effects on ground water.
That's just a ton of corn, which means it's a ton of arable land being used for the corn, and it's a ton resources that could be used for food instead going towards biofuels. Of course, corn isn't the only biofuel around. it's not even a very good one. Sugar cane, which Brazil uses, is far superior, but we've slapped a massive tariff on the stuff in order to support our farmers. As the article notes, wood chips and switchgrass are also hopeful substitutes, but lobbying from the corn industry has effectively crushed research into such alternatives.
For awhile, this just seemed a case of inefficient subsidies. A waste of money, to be sure, but little more. Now, however, it's part of Clorox hunger, a contributor to global starvation, suffering, and even death. Now, in other words, it's a human rights issue. If we insist on inefficiently subsidizing massive quantities of corn-based ethanol, hundreds of millions of people will go hungry. As populations grow pained and restless, productivity will suffer, development will slow, stability will erode, governments will be overthrown (there are already food riots wordlwide), and we can expect an increase in civil wars and regional conflicts, which will kill millions more. All because Congress doesn't want to piss off corn farmers.
Gore and the Greenies are the fault.
“Food for Fuel” isn’t nearly as good a slogan as “Food for Peace.” Were there any economic advisers in the House/White House when this was being cooked up, or just “Green is Good Politics” pollsters?
No blood for ethanol.
boycott ethanol.
Ethanol/Biofuels ping
..which is precisely the result of this foolish policy. Meanwhile, Kerry and the Kennedys oppose offshore windpower because it might affect their view.
A little bit of ethanol in the blood is OK, though.
bookmark
al bore/lib/dems/enviro crusaders....their results of unintended consequences!!!
It occurs to me that I throw away enough food, both spoiled leftovers, and stuff that we bought and didn’t eat, to power an efficient automobile if it were converted into ethanol. I would think there might be some way to collect that and turn it into ethanol. God, what a stinky, nightmarish mess it would be, though. Ugh!!
I like to think Bush's poll numbers were just too low to resist. Now as to why they didn't mention higher food costs as a possible consequence, there isn't much defense.
About your tagline, try it without the /sarc, you'll be needing the asbestos underwear.
I’d say that a few additions to the sewer system might allow the ability to tap the massive quantities of methane that’s anyway produced, to be scrubbed, and bottled as fuel.
Usually, it's the other way around, less food means higher prices. Sometimes, when increased demand outstrips increased production, higher prices could mean more food, but not enough more for the higher-still demand.
Isn’t it an objective of the climate alarmists that the number of “breathers” be reduced?
Does this article imply that the USA is now responsible for starving people all over the world?
The idiocy known as Ethanol is causing people to starve. This is the effect of a stupid liberal law. So what do the liberals want to do? Raise the amount of Ethanol used in gasoline!
Never fails - whenever liberal laws fail, liberals always demand more of the same failed laws.
People were poor and hungry LONG BEFORE ETHANOL. This is a crock of welfare garbage.
Farmers are in business for themselves. They have no obligation to feed people who can’t or won’t pay their way.
If farming bows to the emotional humanitarian demands to continue to feed poor people, they will also become poor and unable to pay their operating expenses and taxes on their property, or even feed themselves.
Low grain prices back in the 1980’s, along with high interest rate, caused the demise of over a million small farms in America. There is no profit in raising food to feed people who are constantly complaining or fighting tribal wars and jihad. I saw little compassion for farmers back then when they were losing their farms at a record pace because they couldn’t make a profit on their investment. But somehow today it is ok to bail out stupid mortage holders from foreclosure. And who is that going to help?? Banks? Stock market? Warren Buffett?
Nobody cared about the small farmers when they were going broke. They are making money now and the screaming banshees of social injustice have to pay market price for a box of corn flakes. They are whining about some assumed obligation to feed poor people. It shoulf be no surprise since the World is leaning towards a socialist one world government. Capitalism is evil.
At some point those starving people are going to have to realize if they don’t start helping themselves, they are going to flat out go hungry. The weak will never inherit the Earth.
Maybe we can just shoot these people.
No, it's saying American Liberal mandated Environmental policy is contributing to high prices of food all over the world. It's the same idea as when the lib policy mandated that DDT not be allowed into any African nation...what happened?....Africans died of malaria.
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