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chelidonThe most shocking line in this quite excellent article about the sudden and continuing jump in food prices worldwide is this:
This year biofuels will take a third of America's (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year.
Ethanol from corn is not "green," is not sustainable, is not good for the environment or people, and is a big boondoggle perpetuated by the government in the interest of appeasing megafarms and trying to look like they're doing something to get the U.S. off dependence on fossil fuels while not actually doing much of anything at all. We need real solutions, not illusory soundbites and bogus plans that actually seriously hurt people (especially poor people) and don't do squat to solve the real problems.
And food prices will keep going up and up as oil prices continue to rise, because our "modern" farming, food processing/production, and distribution systems completely depend on huge quantities of cheap oil to keep it all running.
The end of cheap food
Dec 6th 2007
From The Economist print edition
Rising food prices are a threat to many; they also present the world with an enormous opportunity
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10252015
(excerpt, full article at link above)
FOR as long as most people can remember, food has been getting cheaper and farming has been in decline. In 1974-2005 food prices on world markets fell by three-quarters in real terms. Food today is so cheap that the West is battling gluttony even as it scrapes piles of half-eaten leftovers into the bin.
That is why this year's price rise has been so extraordinary. Since the spring, wheat prices have doubled and almost every crop under the sun—maize, milk, oilseeds, you name it—is at or near a peak in nominal terms. The Economist's food-price index is higher today than at any time since it was created in 1845 (see chart). Even in real terms, prices have jumped by 75% since 2005. No doubt farmers will meet higher prices with investment and more production, but dearer food is likely to persist for years (see article). That is because “agflation” is underpinned by long-running changes in diet that accompany the growing wealth of emerging economies—the Chinese consumer who ate 20kg (44lb) of meat in 1985 will scoff over 50kg of the stuff this year. That in turn pushes up demand for grain: it takes 8kg of grain to produce one of beef.
But the rise in prices is also the self-inflicted result of America's reckless ethanol subsidies. This year biofuels will take a third of America's (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year. And it affects them indirectly, as farmers switch to maize from other crops. The 30m tonnes of extra maize going to ethanol this year amounts to half the fall in the world's overall grain stocks.
This year biofuels will take a third of America's (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year.
Ethanol from corn is not "green," is not sustainable, is not good for the environment or people, and is a big boondoggle perpetuated by the government in the interest of appeasing megafarms and trying to look like they're doing something to get the U.S. off dependence on fossil fuels while not actually doing much of anything at all. We need real solutions, not illusory soundbites and bogus plans that actually seriously hurt people (especially poor people) and don't do squat to solve the real problems.
And food prices will keep going up and up as oil prices continue to rise, because our "modern" farming, food processing/production, and distribution systems completely depend on huge quantities of cheap oil to keep it all running.
The end of cheap food
Dec 6th 2007
From The Economist print edition
Rising food prices are a threat to many; they also present the world with an enormous opportunity
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10252015
(excerpt, full article at link above)
FOR as long as most people can remember, food has been getting cheaper and farming has been in decline. In 1974-2005 food prices on world markets fell by three-quarters in real terms. Food today is so cheap that the West is battling gluttony even as it scrapes piles of half-eaten leftovers into the bin.
That is why this year's price rise has been so extraordinary. Since the spring, wheat prices have doubled and almost every crop under the sun—maize, milk, oilseeds, you name it—is at or near a peak in nominal terms. The Economist's food-price index is higher today than at any time since it was created in 1845 (see chart). Even in real terms, prices have jumped by 75% since 2005. No doubt farmers will meet higher prices with investment and more production, but dearer food is likely to persist for years (see article). That is because “agflation” is underpinned by long-running changes in diet that accompany the growing wealth of emerging economies—the Chinese consumer who ate 20kg (44lb) of meat in 1985 will scoff over 50kg of the stuff this year. That in turn pushes up demand for grain: it takes 8kg of grain to produce one of beef.
But the rise in prices is also the self-inflicted result of America's reckless ethanol subsidies. This year biofuels will take a third of America's (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year. And it affects them indirectly, as farmers switch to maize from other crops. The 30m tonnes of extra maize going to ethanol this year amounts to half the fall in the world's overall grain stocks.
