Tangled Up in Green: The Dangers of Using Food for Fuel
Who knew Stephen King was a prophet?
No, I’m not talking about the demon-possessed hot rods (I think we all saw that coming). I’m talking about America’s zombie-like loyalty to a certain cash crop — one that has turned our entire nation into the children of the corn.
Lately, of course, you can’t watch, read, or listen to the news without someone touting the benefits of corn ethanol and how it’s the key to leading us on a path of energy independence.
There might be a *cough* kernel of truth to that argument, but… (sorry, I suffer from a cousin of Tourette’s that requires me to uncontrollably shout out useless puns)…
Seriously, corn is not the answer. It’s not even a major part of the answer. In fact, it’s a major part of the problem.
What do I mean? Well, lend me your *cough* ear (jeez, the medication is wearing off quicker)…
Corn ethanol was meant to be a supplement for crude oil. As such, logic would have you believe that as demand for oil went down, so too would its price. But, if anything, prices of the two have escalated hand in hand:
Crude oil has more than tripled in price from the $30-per-barrel figure of March 2004. Corn prices this month have averaged slightly less than double the $2.75-per- bushel average of March 2004.
The bigger problem with this scenario is that higher corn prices mean higher overall food prices. Corn, after all, is a staple of the diet fed to livestock, and so any sharp rise in the price of corn will have a dramatic effect on meat and poultry prices; add to that the fact that practically every mainstream commercial food product contains some amount of high-fructose corn syrup — and that corn is quickly gaining popularity as a replacement for petroleum-based plastics, and it’s easy to see why everyone’s grocery bills are going through the roof.
People like us, fortunate enough to be able to *cough* stomach these higher grocery prices, will find a way to adapt — we’ll cut back on the amount we buy, we’ll look for cheaper solutions. In the U.S., food prices account for only about 10 percent of the average family’s budget. It’ll make things tougher, but that’s not the problem.
The problem is that food prices are so high now that developing and poorer countries are having a much harder time feeding their people. In many developing countries, for example, food prices take up roughly 70 percent of that average family budget.
Is there a direct link between our current corn craze and global hunger? Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram thinks so:
Citing the US as an example, he said nearly 20% of corn goes to making bio fuels.
Mr Chidambaram said there was now a climate of food insecurity
“It is a sign of the lopsided priorities of certain countries that they will resort to measures that will produce fuel at a cheaper cost in order to meet the transport requirements of a section of their population,” Mr Chidambaram said.
He said the pursuit of such policies at a time when many in the world could barely afford to eat was “outrageous and… must be condemned”.
Granted, the rising price of corn is not the only culprit for rising food costs and I’m not saying we should do away with all corn ethanol.
But let’s be reasonable, you don’t replace one dictator (oil) with another (corn). There is no monolithic solution to our energy needs, in fact it’s the exact opposite: we need a variety of smaller-scale alternatives. Moreover, we need to emphasize biofuels that are native to a particular area, so switchgrass and algae should be just as much at the center of this discussion. Finally, it means we need to cut back on government subsidies for corn — how about directing those incentives toward encouraging other less-damaging alternative fuels?
So the next time some local politician spouts a *cough* corn pone notion that ethanol is our eco-savior, just remember that the argument isn’t so cut-and-dry, and that how we decide to pursue our energy needs here can have dramatic consequences all over the globe.
Now, imagine that, I managed to get through this entire post without one reference to being *cough* corny! (uh-oh, time for more medication…)
Photo courtesy of 0595
Corn isn’t all that great to begin with for biofuels. The process of making it usable costs more than it saves.
HEMP, of all things, is one of the best plants to use for biofuels. Yes, hemp. Depending on the refining process, it is between 3 and 6 times as effective as corn (and it gives more energy than it uses to be produced, no less).
So forget the corn, let’s all go with hemp.
Now this idea may be CRAZY but no one wants to factor in the price of fuel into the equation for higher food prices. The farmer needs to plow the fields, light the barn, run the milking machine, process the products, and ship them. In 1997 gas was $1.25 per gallon. It is now $3.29. Property taxes are up. All are expenses of working the land. Even if no corn was sold as fuel the price of groceries must increase. Now think about all of those farmers who are subsidized for fallow fields. Let’s pay them to not grow crops to decrease the supply of food and increase the profits. Smart idea there. Add to that the unwillingness to allow farmers to grow genetically engineered crops with high yields for fuel, and now you have demand far out stripping supply.
Sun, wind, and hydro will be the future source of our energy. We need land for growing crops to stay alive. You wouldn’t want to burn your breakfast just to get to work would you?
The problem of world hunger isn’t going anywhere.I don’t think bio-fuels are the way to fix our reliance on petrol or help slow global warming, but famine isn’t itself something that should stop us from researching in other sectors. Sure Americans over-consume but that’s not new. This isn’t a bio-fuel problem its a problem with all of American culture. Its silly to blame new markets for a problem which didn’t start and won’t end with bio-fuels.
It’s silly to blame America for the world’s energy woes. America was simply the first one “there” and they’re showing the rest of the world that following the same path could be dangerous for the world as a whole. Other countries will be in the exact same situation given enough time. It’s time for someone to step up and develop viable offshore hydrogen generation plants (ships) powered by wind/solar energy. I’ve seen a few proposals and they sound incredibly enticing! It sounds like a practically unlimited clean-burning fuel source. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong. I haven’t researched it enough to be called an expert…
i’ve got an electric bike, it’s awesome. i’d recommend getting one.
You were almost there when you mentioned the livestock. The diets of hundreds of millions in East and South Asia are changing as their annual GDP increases. More money allows them to afford to eat more milk and beef. It’s a perfect storm. You also noticed that corn and fuel are going up in price at the same time. If biofuels were the only reason for the increase in food prices, then as the price of corn went up, the price of oil would go down, as a substitution effect. Neither seems to be the case.
This post is great.
The growing of ANY plant for use as a biofuel, much less the monster that is the corn industry, is a terrible thing. It will simply contribute to all of the problems we are trying to avoid, including global warming.
Corn ethanol is not a “new market”. MONOCULTURE, which practically exists in the USA, affects the health of the entire world in the same way a MONOPOLY decreases the quality of life for those affected by it’s wide reach. I don’t think its a stretch of the imagination to understand this.
We are in serious trouble as a PLANET if big CORN, OIL, and WAR continue to rape our resources.
That’s true in a world where everything is exactly identical to how things work in the USA, but not only are there other plants much more efficient than corn (I don’t know about CornIsBad’s idea on hemp, but sugar cane is twelve times more efficient than corn, and it grows faster) that’s just changing from one combustion engine to another. Solar power, wind power and hydroelectric power are already used widescale is Europe (solar and wind) and countries with large hydrographic networks like Brazil and China (hydro). Biofuel will only be important as part of a transition process until clean technologies are better implemented and a viable alternative to the current gigantic chemcal batteries is found to store energy.
This day and age, there is no transition period. If we adopt biofuels, we will exhaust that option due to the financial investments involved in just beginning such a mistake.