I was listening to NPR this morning and they were interviewing the executive director of Shell Oil company about the use of ethanol and it's possible effects on world food supplies. It was a broad sort of interview and they only touched on this aspect very briefly, but it sparked my interest. We have a rotting surplus of corn in this country. So I don't really see how world food SUPPLY would differ. Shell is arguing that ethanol producers should use non food based agents that contain cellulose so that the supply and demand curves on food products do not shift dramatically.
The executive director also noted that the price of corn has doubled since Bush's announcement concerning ethanol and that it concerns them that basic foods could become unattainable, i.e.: tortillas. What is not being addressed is the problem of allocation and distribution.
As Micheal Pollan discusses in his most recent book, corn is a major part of every human diet, it comes from animal products (cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys and farmed fish (via feed), sweetened products (via corn syrup and it's high fructose version, processed foods (via corn flour and leavening, distribution.lethicin etc.), corn products (i.e.: chips, tortillas), beer (adjunct) and just corn itself. It's also in a ton of nonfood items from disposable diapers to cleansers. The price of corn is now so low that in the US the government gives subsidies to farmers who grow it ($19 billion in US taxpayer dollars each year), and the majority of it sits in grain elevators. So we feed industry and animals corn and we produce more than we can consume in the U.S. There seems to be a problem when we're sitting on all of this corn not to mention feeding it to animals when millions of people are already starving; all of this prior to more corn going to ethanol production.
eh?
No comments:
Post a Comment