Roody

Read about it here. I've also read that milk is starting to go way up in price, and meat and farm-raised fish will soon follow.

bragi

If the government stopped subsidizing ethanol, the price of food would decline pretty quickly again, and ethanol would recede into the obscurity it so richly deserves. Corn-based ethanol is the silliest energy idea I've ever heard about. It still puts CO2 into the atmosphere (though at a somewhat more modest rate than fossil fuels), it takes away from food production, as the article demonstrates, and, worst of all, it's insanely inefficient. A gallon of gasoline produces 30-200 BTUs for every BTU needed to produce it, depending on where you drill for the oil. A gallon of corn-based ethanol, on the other hand, produces 1.34 BTUs for every BTU needed to produce it. Without the subsidies, no one in their right mind would even be thinking of corn-based ethanol. This is just another example of the executive branch of the US government benefitting its friends by robbing the rest of us.

Roody

Second silliest. Gasoline is still the silliest.

r8ingbull

If staple food items double, or even triple in price they would still be a good deal at a very acceptable price to me. A dozen eggs for $2.27, a loaf of white bread for $1.77, 10 lbs potatoes for $7.50, My CSA Share to $300, 20 lbs rice for $12? So what. Maybe I can't buy any more Frosted Super Marshmallow cereal or Pop-Tarts or greasy ass potatoe chip or any of the other crap people buy.

While I don't think Ethanol is a great idea, I'm all in favor of it if farmers can make a more reasonable wage, we can reduce our trade balance, and help our environment ever so slightly. Seems like a win/win to me. I'm sure those subsidies are way less than oil subsidies.

scottyk

Maybe the food producers will stop putting High Fructose Corn Syrup in everything now.

0_emissions :=)

+1. Take care of the big problem as well as the second biggest...

Slow Train

Yup, ABC News had a report on this evenings broadcast. Grain farmers are happy - everybody else less so. The report did say that this is just the beginning. With all the ethanol refineries that are expected to come online this year they predict that over 1/3 of the US corn supply will be diverted next year.

becnal

It isn't taking food out of Americans' mouths. And it isn't any countries responsibility to feed other countries populations. If a country can't feed itself, it has way too many people. This is why the world has a massive over-population problem. Transporting food to artificially support inflated populations elsewhere.

gcl8a

Perhaps we should stop exporting food to Ethiopia and "decrease the surplus population..."

Platy

Anyone else been reading in the news about the honeybees vanishing all of a sudden? It started about November of last year. Supposedly up to 70% of the bees gone in some states. When they open up the hives all the worker bees are missing. Disappeared, not dead. No one knows the cause. Suspicions include genetically engineered corn and cotton but the current attitude of investigators is, it can't possibly be that.

Roody

Spoken like a single male. You might think differently if you had a couple kids to feed, and not very much time to prepare meals because you're working overtime to feed them.

What gets me mad is the form of this particular subsidy. For one thing, you're making my fuel (food) more expensive in order to make your fuel cheaper (ethanol for your stinking car).

Sorry, but I don't "swallow" that argument. If you insist on driving a totally outmoded automobile, do it with your own money, not mine!

Roody

How is diverting one-third of our largest food crop to fuel NOT taking food out of American's mouths? It's high school economics, not really that hard to figure out.

bragi

I have 2 responses to your post:

1. It is, in fact, taking food out of Americans' mouths, in a very literal sense. If you divert 1/3 of the corn crop to ethanol production, the price of the remaining corn is going to be bid upwards. Every kind of food that requires any corn, including almost all animal products, is going to get significantly more expensive.

2. What do you suggest be done about the already-existing "inflated populations elsewhere"?

r8ingbull

I'll say I don't think these subsidies are a good idea, but the other alternative is oil subsidies, which do you prefer? Farmers in the Mid-west or War in the Mid-east? Seems like a pretty simple choice.

By the way, I average 1500-1800 miles car driving per year, at least 98% with more than one passenger.

wahoonc

Not only is it affecting corn based products, but land that was being used to grow other food crops is being diverted to corn for ETOH production. IE; wheat, barley and oats. And I am sure there are others. FWIW they could get a helluva lot more ETOH from different things besides corn. It is all a political boondoggle and nothing more.

Aaron

Roody

I kinda wish you hadn't asked that second question. The answers are often pretty scary, with all kind of "final solution" overtones. (I hope that isn't the case here! Most of us are pretty enlightened and compassionate people.)

Clearly however, the thoughts of Bush and other ethanol proponents are not with the billions of people in the world who barely have enough food to eat already. The sad thing is, we are finally making a little progress on feeding people better. This has taken several decades, and now along comes ethanol with its potential to wipe out these gains in just a year or two.

r8ingbull

You are aware we aren't talking about sweet corn and corn on the cob here right? We're talking about fodder for chickens, pigs, and cows. If you wanted to make a difference encourage people to eat veggies, fruits and grains. I here this figure about 1 unit of energy produces 1.36 units of ethanol energy, but how many units of corn energy produce one unit of meat/poultry energy?

"Animals fed on grain, and those that rely on grazing need far more water than grain crops.[47] According to the USDA, growing the crops necessary to feed farmed animals requires nearly half of the United States' water supply and 80% of its agricultural land. Additionally, animals raised for food in the U.S. consume 90% of the soy crop, 80% of the corn crop, and a total of 70% of its grain.[48] In tracking food animal production from the feed trough to the dinner table, the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production range from 4:1 energy input to protein output ratio up to 54:1"

r8ingbull

I agree ethanol (what does ETOH mean?) isn't a solution, however it is much better than importing billions of gallons of oil and fighting wars to obtain it. Political boondoggle it is.

Hopefully this drives the value of land for farming up and out of the reach of housing developers. Would you guys rather see more suburbia or more acres of corn and slightly higher food prices?

Sir Lunch-a-lot

I suspect that since most people don't know this, distributors (not farmers) can jack up the price of corn based food, and most people won't be the wiser. In fact, I'm pretty sure they do this sort of thing all the time.

cooker

I guess Fidel Castro was right...
https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17850102/

gerv 

There are some who claim that the disasters (drought, war, etc) may have a basis in climate change (of which some claim the US is the major contributor). Take the case of Lake Chad which has been drying up for many years and has left inhabitants scrambling for arable land.
https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4906692.stm
It's often easy to assume over-population.

wahoonc

Short form of Ethanol, it really should be EtOH. On a personal side I would like to see more organic farms vs regular farms vs housing developments

Aaron

gerv 

One good side effect of rising food prices is that some people may resort to growing things in their backyards. Also, it will make local, organic farming operations much more viable. I see this as the "silver lining" in this cloud.

wahoonc

And it might just might cut down on the amount of processed junk food that people eat....nah that would be too much to hope for...

Aaron

donrhummy

You think they don't know this? Does it not strike you the least bit "odd" that this "solution" to oil is being championed by someone who owned an oil company and owns stock in oil?