Burning up food prices: More corn going to ethanol production now than food productio

[phillipbbg]

naturalnews.com printable article
Originally published August 19 2011


Burning up food prices: More corn going to ethanol production now than food production
by J. D. Heyes

(NaturalNews) The world has a food shortage. This isn't speculative or subjective, and it's not fear-mongering or alarmist. It's a well-documented fact and, what's more, the real experts - those who aren't influenced by government or corporate interests - have been trying to make that case for months.

Moreover, these same experts say, the shortages are causing global food prices to rise - dramatically in some cases - which is only leading to more hunger, more pain and more hardship.

So, what is the United States doing to blunt the effects of this food shortage? What is official U.S. policy regarding, say, the production of corn - the primary ingredient in scores of food products and livestock feed? Well, officially, our policy is to burn up a substantial amount of corn every year in our automobiles - food that could be used to feed Americans and the world.

"In the United States, which harvested 416 million tons of grain in 2009, 119 million tons went to ethanol distilleries to produce fuel for cars," says Lester Brown, writing in Foreign Policy magazine in January. "That's enough to feed 350 million people for a year. The massive U.S. investment in ethanol distilleries sets the stage for direct competition between cars and people for the world grain harvest."

It must be a "West" thing because the Europeans are following a similar policy. Though most cars in Europe run on diesel fuel, "there is growing demand for plant-based diesel oil, principally from rapeseed and palm oil," writes Brown. That has led to less land being utilized to grow food and the cutting and clearing of rainforest in Indonesia and Malaysia, to harvest "fuel" for palm oil plantations.

Some experts say that using more corn in the U.S. isn't driving up food costs, and it's not a problem for the global food supply, they insist.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in its most recent Crop Production and Supply/Demand report for this year, said for the first time ever more of the American corn crop will likely wind up in our gas tanks rather than in the bellies of our livestock.

No big deal, says an industry insider.

"Every credible study has clearly found the effect of ethanol policies is negligible on the price of corn," says Monte Shaw, president of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association.

Not so fast, say researchers and economists from Purdue University. According to a report released in July, demand for biofuels (corn=ethanol) in the U.S. is driving up food prices, and that phenomenon isn't likely to change for at least the next two years.

The study's authors said that in 2005, about 10 percent of the U.S. corn crop went to ethanol production; by 2010, that climbed to 27 percent. And, since the Obama administration's official policy is "no new drilling" and alternative energy automobiles are still years away at best, the official policy of burning our food supply will remain for the foreseeable future .

As the world goes hungry and food prices climb, the world's breadbasket has chosen to burn up enough of a single commodity to feed hundreds of millions of people. That's a pretty big deal.

Sources:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articl...

http://thegazette.com/2011/08/15/fo...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environme...

[exchange student]

It’s because the USA has it all wrong; they keep shutting down the research labs because they think they found the right way to produce ethanol.

The answer lies in a company called Iogen, in Ottawa Canada. They produce Cellulosic ethanol which is different from what the USA uses. The difference between the two types of ethanol products is that conventional fuel ethanol is derived from grains such as corn and wheat. Cellulosic ethanol is made from the non-food portion of renewable feedstocks such as cereal straws and corn stover.

Cellulosic ethanol is a fully renewable, advanced biofuel that can be used in today's cars. It is one of the most cost effective ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and gasoline consumption use in road transport, and can deliver CO2 reduction benefits similar to improved vehicle efficiency.

My friend is an engineer at this company and he told me that Shell recently affiliated with them and are helping them build a mass producing factory in the great prairies to fuel a big part of North America's transportation industry.

Just give them a year or two and you should be hearing about them on the news.

If you want more information on Iogen just visit their site at

http://www.iogen.ca/company/about/index.html


Cheers,

Steve

[Marsila]

Thanks for the article phillipbbg, u know this is all stuff they lie to us about.

Kansas itself can produce enough grains to produce more than enough bread for all the western world and have some left over. the USA did at one point have the most fertile land in the world, and can on its own produce enough food for all the world. but those running things haven't evolved to that thinking level yet.

China keeps buying land here and there and everywhere to plant Soya beans where they should not be planted......to feed animals. ironically if the planted beans were to go straight for human consumption every human in the world will have enough protein...actually it could feed around 9 billion people.

there is enough food to feed the world, but maybe its a plan to make us hate each other like because of "them" we don't have cheap good quality food like before......sigh (actually there are still a few places in the world like this...but very very few)

[exchange student]

That’s exactly why I became vegetarian; I just find it stupid that we use our resources to feed animals while people are still starving to death

Just look at these stats

-If we eat the plants we grow instead of feeding them to animals, the world's food shortage will disappear virtually overnight. Remember that 100 acres of land will produce enough beef for 20 people but enough wheat to feed 240 people.

-The world's fresh water shortage is being made worse by animal farming. And meat producers are the biggest polluters of water. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat. If the US meat industry wasn't supported by the taxpayer paying a large proportion of its water costs, then hamburger meat would cost $35 a pound.

-If everyone in North America reduced their animal food consumption by just 10 percent, the grain we would save from animal feed could be used to feed all of the hungry throughout the world (Earth Save)

Cheers,

Steve

[Marsila]

Hi exchange student (steve)

a lot of what you say is true, but its unnatural animal production not animal production that caused the problem.

thing is if we left cows to graze where they should (the plains of south america, Australia and new zealand, Texas etc) in the natural way of letting them walk around and eat grass it would be okay. True there won't be as much meat for consumption as now but it would be okay.

unfortunately it is the unnatural thing of locking cows in those little chambers not allowing them to roam and feeding them food that has nothing to do with their 'natural preference' that caused all the waste of water, resources, and if am not wrong how foot and mouth disease started for cows, and how bird flu started for chicken. If we allow everything to stay like Earth had planned for it, without our interference then we wouldn't have half the problems we do today. Humans really don't need to consume as much meat as they do.

The amount of corn and etc used for fuel production is not really significant compared to the amount being fed to animals or other such brilliant wastes of resources.

(however i agree with you that a vegetarian lifestyle does improve life in more than one way)

[tcjim1]

I agree with Marsila, animal are not met to be caged up. Cattle and chickens are forced to eat alot of corn to quickly fatten them up for slaughter. It all comes down to greed and service to self and not service to others and mother earth.