Food Fight: Is Corn Food or Fuel?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01. 5.07
Ed Zurga for The New York Times
We quote from our review of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma "If you eat industrially, you are made of corn. It holds together your McNuggets, it sweetens your soda pop, it fattens your meat, it is everywhere. It is fed to us in many forms, because it is cheap- a dollar buys you 875 calories in soda pop but only 170 in fruit juice. A McDonalds meal was analyzed as almost entirely corn." At the same time, we are in the middle of a corn/ethanol gold rush. The Earth Policy Institute says that 79 ethanol plants are under construction, which would more than double ethanol production capacity to 11 billion gallons by 2008. (and more than the industry admits) “This unprecedented diversion of corn to fuel production will affect food prices everywhere,” Said Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute and TreeHugger contributor.
From the New York Times:
With spot prices of corn soaring to record highs of nearly $4 a bushel last month, farmers are expected to plant some 85 million acres of corn this year, an increase of 8 percent over 2006 and what would be the largest corn-seeding in the country since 1985, said Dan Basse, president of AgResource, an agricultural research company in Chicago.
Ethanol has raised the incomes of farmers and given new hope to flagging rural economies. But the reliance on corn to produce ethanol in the United States has drawn concerns from some economists, who question whether the drive to corn-based fuel will push up the prices of livestock and retail prices of meat, poultry and dairy products.
Mr. Brown is among those who believe the ethanol industry is growing too quickly. He called for a federal moratorium on the licensing of new distilleries. “We need a time out, a chance to catch our breath and decide how much corn can be used for ethanol without raising food prices,” he said Thursday.
Like many other experts, he advocates moving past corn-based ethanol into cellulosic ethanol, produced from plant waste and nonfood crops like switch grass. ::New York Times
The problem isn't whether using corn as a source of energy will raise the costs of our food. The problem is that corn is already so heavily subsidized by the government that its "cheap" cost really isn't so cheap. As we invest in ethanol to run our cars, we demand more corn, and as we demand more corn, we ultimately pay for it through more government subsidies. In layman's terms, more taxes.
This blog should also be addressing the fact that the energy it takes to create corn ethanol is so high that corn ethanol is practically an inefficient form of energy. Ask yourself why we are continuing to invest in this source of energy if it is ultimately nonsensical, and then remember that corn is subsidized, meaning big agriculture is policy investing to ensure that their subsidies are maintained.
LA: we have, many times, described ethanol as a subsidy business, not an energy business.
I touched on this subject somewhat sarcastically on my blog:
http://duhscoveries.blogspot.com/2006/11/breaking-news-fat-people-use-more-gas.html
Corn calories have made people fat, fat people use more fuel (both metabolically and in transportation), setting up a vicious circle if ethanol becomes a major fuel source.
Less affordable meat will be a good thing for the nation's health and for animals. But ethanol is a side issue. The real focus should be on somehow convincing the government to eliminate subsidies. As long as farmers and agribusiness are supported and encouraged to grow more and more industrial corn, there will be a corn glut.
Corn monoculture destroys wilderness, crop diversity, small farmers, sustainable alternatives, etc.
Okay, here is some lateral thinking ...
Let's use French Wine to make ethanol (or for that matter, Spanish Wine)! Wait, before you say that you would rather drink it, the French (and to a lesser extent, the Spanish) have been overproducing wine for several years! If you don't believe me, just google "french wine overproduction" and look at the articles. In 2005, the EU distilled 740 million gallons of wine into base alcohol for an assortment of uses ... why not into ethanol?
Not all ethonal is food based!
Not all ethonal requires subsidies in order to survive as an efficient business model.
In particular - various forms of cellulose ethonal production are both benficial to the enviroment and viable without subsidies.