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.
Your batting no numbers. I gave you plenty...
Now please tell me why ethanol subsidies are such a great thing?
Also, please tell me why you’re sputtering all this pinko watermelon nonsense all over FR? Hanging out with Newt, Pat Robertson, Nany Pelosi and Al Gore a lot lately or just making a tidy buck off raping the taxpayers when they’re forced to overpay for the environmental mandates you seem so happy to endorse. What’s your carbon foot print?
You do recall that this occured in 1994 don't you?
In fact it was just this past week that then Vice President Al Gore proudly and loudly cast the tie breaking vote in the Senate mandating todays level of ethanol.
No, dear boy. You posted SEARCH PAGES, not numbers. And in the one link that DID go to an article, the "proof" was nonexistent. If that kind of article is what you think constitutes proof, then you're in a world of hurt.
Go back and re-read ALL my postings, and you'll see I made no statements to that effect. What I said was that I do NOT believe that production of ethanol from corn is the major reason for the rise in food prices. And the article leading in to this thread agrees with ME, not you.
Because I know that producing ethanol from corn results in an overall increase in the total quantity of food. The reason that is so is that only about 1/3 (the carbohydrate fraction) of the corn is converted---the rest (the protein and oil fractions) re-enters the food chain in a form that is actually HIGHER in food value per pound than the original corn.
I also know that a great deal of land was taken out of corn production as yields of corn TRIPLED from the 1950's to the current day, so that 33% loss can easily be made up by increased production.
Lastly, I know what a tiny fraction of the price that the actual grain constitutes of the overall cost of a given food product.
My own opinion is that the current increase in the price of food is due to 1) increased fuel costs, and 2) speculation.
As to "pinko watermelon"---bullshit. The above are simple facts that fly in the face of all the hoopla about "burning food for fuel" (a cute sound bite with no meaning) as being the reason for food price increases.
I am a little fuzzy on the exact details, but they have been putting ethanol in gasoline for a while, earlier than '94, I think. There was experiment gone awry with methanol too. Recently, under Bush, a huge increase in the ethanol content was mandated. This change has the ethanol industry scrambling to add capacity and is resulting in pressure on food prices.
I was looking for links on this and it looks like many states are taking the lead on mandating 10% ethanol in gas. I thought 10% ethanol was part of the wording, but the Energy Act of 2005 just sets the amount of biofuel (ethanol) to be added to gasoline, ratcheting up to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012.
So you want to rape the taxpayer, instead letting it see if it can survive on it’s own in the market. How free market thinking of you!!! When Ethanol can’t survive on it’s own in the market, dig into the taxpayer’s pockets! I have news for you, that is watermelon logic.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed022608c.cfm
http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1750.cfm
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=7308
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8730
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20943&CFID=2799762&CFTOKEN=89473594
http://cei.org/gencon/004,06075.cfm
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed022608c.cfm
Ethanol advocates are also promoting other biofuels whose cellulose can be used in place of corn. But the "food vs. fuel" problem isn't solved if farmers remove acreage from corn production to plant these instead. The ethanol lobby claims that the higher costs of food are being pushed mostly by the higher costs of energy. Of course, subsidizing ethanol while suppressing domestic oil and gas drilling and halting construction of oil refineries and nuclear power plants is a big reason why energy costs keep climbing!
http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/bg2020.cfm
ummmm....I have yet to see any studies, or number coming from your right leaning think tanks, or are they all from the corn lobby?
Y'know, you've got a VERY vivid imagination. NOWHERE in any of my posts have I in ANY WAY referred to the presence or absence of subsidies, so you can stop trying to beat me with that stick.
Y'know, I actually wasted my time reading the first three of your links, and they just continue the repitition of the same "talking points", over and over and over. Not one real shred of HARD DATA is present in them. It appears that you needed to spend a bit more than three minutes looking things up.
You REALLY don't understand the issues, do you. One of the main points of using switchgrass (in addition to it's greater efficiency of ethanol production), is that IT GROWS OVER LARGE AREAS WHERE CORN WILL NOT GROW. This isn't to say that there's not some overlap.
"I have yet to see any studies, or number coming from your right leaning think tanks, or are they all from the corn lobby?"
The posted article is enough for me. Or have you forgotten so quickly that it says directly that "two-thirds to three quarters" of the rise in retail food prices has nothing to do with the cost of grain.
They are making Jeb Bush rich beyond his wildest dreams.
No you just don't have any real numbers to back up any of your claims yet you insist EVERYBODY else dig up studies for you, and then not address each one. Therefore, I say B.S. to what ever claims you're making. And you still seem content to rape the tax payer for ethanol subsidies.
No you just don't have any real numbers to back up any of your claims yet you insist EVERYBODY else dig up studies for you, and then not address each one. Therefore, I say B.S. to what ever claims you're making. And you still seem content to rape the tax payer for ethanol subsidies.
No, I'm insisting that YOU come up with some REAL numbers to back up YOUR contention that ethanol production is the major factor in the rise of food prices, instead of continually re-linking to the same lame stories (note--NOT studies, because none of them have hard data worth a damn). Look, dude, I'm a PhD Chemist. I KNOW what constitutes hard data and what doesn't, and the pieces you've linked to simply don't qualify. And if those are the quality of stuff that the Heritage Foundation and CEI puts out, then SHAME on them for doing a lousy job.
And you can take your constant harping about "ethanol subsidies" and stick it in your ear. I could care less whether ethanol is subsidized or not. The existence or lack of same of subsidies is simply irrelevant to the point I'm making, which is that crop price rises are not the biggest factor in food price rises.
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