Food As Fuel: Collateral Damage
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03. 9.08
Rail cars full of wheat; From Photo Essay by Dan Koeck for The New York Times
Read these two stories together:
1. New York Times on A Global Need for Grain That Farms Can’t Fill: "Wheat prices have doubled in the last six months. Corn is on a tear. Barley, sunflower seeds, canola and soybeans are all up sharply.... Everywhere, the cost of food is rising sharply. A tailor in Lagos, Nigeria, named Abel Ojuku said recently that he had been forced to cut back on the bread he and his family love. “If you wanted to buy three loaves, now you buy one,” Mr. Ojuku said.
2. The Guardian: US dumping of biofuels will ruin us, says UK firm The US is flooding Europe with subsidised biofuels that threaten to destroy Europe's domestic refining market. "Imports of heavily subsidised biodiesel fuel from the US, so-called B99, have eroded margins to the point where we have no choice but to consider how to reduce operating costs...."If you believe in free trade, this isn't a fair market." He feels it is unlikely that the US will end subsidies to its powerful farming lobby in an election year.
So people starve because the American government subsidizes soybean growers to make biofuels which are then exported at below manufacturing costs. It all makes so much sense.
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Tropical Forests Better Left Intact As Carbon Sinks Than Converted to Biofuel Plantations
- Ethanol Industry Still Dodging Blame For Role In Global Food Crisis
- Run Cars on Green Electricity, Not Natural Gas
- US Farmer’s Incomes Now Tied More to Ethanol Than Food, Economist Says
Along the same lines (but worse) read some of the consequences of subsidizing farming... eating mud pancakes (among others)
http://www.e-citizen.tv/wordpress/2008/02/29/crise-alimentaire-mondiale-pam/langswitch_lang/en/
Over at Green Car Congress, biofuel is a key topic. In commenting upon a GCC article (URL: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/royal-society-b.html)about the report issue by the Royal Society, Harvey D. observed that biofuel sustainability depends upon the feedstock used.
P.S.2.L.A. The adjective sarcastic comes from the Latin, sacare, which means to tear flesh.
The farm subsities program in the US is a broken program that needs to go away. They in no way help the farmers they were intended to(small farms). But on the same hand I don't know why everyone expects the US to supply the entire world with food. If you don't like the prices we a charging grow your own.
Let me get this right. Our government has been paying farmers not to grow corn, wheat, etc for years. Now when we need it most the price has skyrocketed. I guess it's just another one of those things I can't understand.
Why do we use dollars to buy oil? Why not barter. If another country wants food from us them trade it for oil or something we need. Since those things have an intrinsic value, it should be easy to set up some sort of trade practice. Of course it would be hard for the IRS to decide how many bushels of corn to take.
It's time to stop subsidizing folks to not raise crops. There is a big difference between crops we grow for food and those we grow for feed.
Texas has several growing seasons, however, it's been several years since I saw corn being grown. I guess it's a lot cheaper to sell the property off to some shyster developer than to grow crops.
Just my 2 cents ....
It was not too long ago that many people from both sides of the aisle were saying that American and EU farm subsidies were leading to staple food prices (grains, soy, etc.) that were too low and that higher food prices would benefit developing countries, especially Africa. The argument was that agriculture was the natural industry suited to many developing countries and yet due to artificially low prices, they could not compete. With little other industry, the developing countries then become dependent on imported, cheap, subsidized food rather than growing it themselves.
So... I sure wish some journalistic organization would cover this angle of the story. What was the flaw in what seemed like a very rational and humanitarian argument that developed world farmers shouldn't be subsidized to put developing world farmers out of business?
I suspect that one of the problems may be that the biofuels program was phased in too fast, not giving time for farming to ramp up in places such as Africa.
Is it possible that these higher prices could be good for Africa in some ways? If there were more transition time... if there were development aid money to help reestablish local farming?
Oh... if only journalists had an institutional memory and were willing to dive a bit below the hype of the day.