Feeds: 
symbol identifies content for paid subscribers only.
HOW BIOFUELS COULD STARVE THE POOR.
Reporting on the food crisis in Haiti last week, The Washington Times introduced its readership to the term "Clorox hunger," described as "a hunger so painful it feels like your stomach is being eaten by bleach or battery acid." It's horrifying stuff. But that's what the global food crisis -- which many economists now believe will push 100 million people into "absolute poverty," and which will do far worse to those already below the absolute poverty line -- looks like. Higher food prices mean less food. In America, that's an annoyance. In other countries, that's a death sentence. And it's in no small part our fault.
Somewhere between a quarter and a third of the run-up in prices is the product of increased US demand for biofuels. When you demand a lot more corn for energy, there's less of it for food. And as Tom Philpott notes, "When farmers scramble to plant corn to cash in on the ethanol boom, they plant less of other stuff like soy and even wheat, putting upward pressure on their prices."
So what's with the demand for corn? An article in this month's Foreign Affairs, entitled "How Boifuels Could Starve the Poor," lays it out, and shows how the situation could become much worse:
In the United States and other large economies, the ethanol industry is artificially buoyed by government subsidies, minimum production levels, and tax credits. High oil prices over the past few years have made ethanol naturally competitive, but the U.S. government continues to heavily subsidize corn farmers and ethanol producers. Direct corn subsidies equaled $8.9 billion in 2005. Although these payments will fall in 2006 and 2007 because of high corn prices, they may soon be dwarfed by the panoply of tax credits, grants, and government loans included in energy legislation passed in 2005 and in a pending farm bill designed to support ethanol producers. The federal government already grants ethanol blenders a tax allowance of 51 cents per gallon of ethanol they make, and many states pay out additional subsidies.That's just a ton of corn, which means it's a ton of arable land being used for the corn, and it's a ton resources that could be used for food instead going towards biofuels. Of course, corn isn't the only biofuel around. it's not even a very good one. Sugar cane, which Brazil uses, is far superior, but we've slapped a massive tariff on the stuff in order to support our farmers. As the article notes, wood chips and switchgrass are also hopeful substitutes, but lobbying from the corn industry has effectively crushed research into such alternatives.Consumption of ethanol in the United States was expected to reach over 6 billion gallons in 2006. (Consumption of biodiesel was expected to be about 250 million gallons.) In 2005, the U.S. government mandated the use of 7.5 billion gallons of biofuels per year by 2012; in early 2007, 37 governors proposed raising that figure to 12 billion gallons by 2010; and last January, President Bush raised it further, to 35 billion gallons by 2017. Six billion gallons of ethanol are needed every year to replace the fuel additive known as MTBE, which is being phased out due to its polluting effects on ground water.
For awhile, this just seemed a case of inefficient subsidies. A waste of money, to be sure, but little more. Now, however, it's part of Clorox hunger, a contributor to global starvation, suffering, and even death. Now, in other words, it's a human rights issue. If we insist on inefficiently subsidizing massive quantities of corn-based ethanol, hundreds of millions of people will go hungry. As populations grow pained and restless, productivity will suffer, development will slow, stability will erode, governments will be overthrown (there are already food riots wordlwide), and we can expect an increase in civil wars and regional conflicts, which will kill millions more. All because Congress doesn't want to piss off corn farmers.
COMMENTS (31)
So what's this got to do with the price of rice in China? Seriously, there's obviously something much bigger going on than biofuels. Rice isn't used in biofuels, nor is it a substitute crop for corn. Yet the price of rice has gone up more than corn or wheat. I'm starting to suspect that the increased demand for meat might be a bigger factor in the food shortages. Corn ethanol is a bad idea, of course. But maybe eating so much meat is even worse. I say that as I just finished a cheese steak. So, I'm obviously to blame as well.
Posted by: fostert | April 25, 2008 4:13 PM
Fostert,
The Economist has a significant write up about the food crisis and they state,
"The prices mainly reflect changes in demand—not problems of supply, such as harvest failure. The changes include the gentle upward pressure from people in China and India eating more grain and meat as they grow rich and the sudden, voracious appetites of western biofuels programmes, which convert cereals into fuel. This year the share of the maize (corn) crop going into ethanol in America has risen and the European Union is implementing its own biofuels targets. To make matters worse, more febrile behaviour seems to be influencing markets: export quotas by large grain producers, rumours of panic-buying by grain importers, money from hedge funds looking for new markets."
It's interesting that while they mention corn ethanol they attribute most of the problem to an increased demand and not an issue with the supply chain. Now if supply can't meet demand that seems indicative to me of problems with the supply but there you have it.
Posted by: Steve Balboni | April 25, 2008 4:50 PM
Of course, it doesn't get mentioned hear that Obama/Hillary support these ethanol subsidies, and want more of them, while McCain wants to get rid of them.
Posted by: jamie | April 25, 2008 5:04 PM
All because Congress doesn't want to piss off corn farmers.
Say it again: there are more World of Warcraft players than farmers.
Posted by: Allen K. | April 25, 2008 5:15 PM
Thanks Steve, I think the problem is a sudden increase (rather than gradual) in demand. You consume a lot more rice if you first feed it to a pig and then eat the pig. As China and India become more affluent, meat consumption is rising, and the rice consumed by those animals must be rising much faster. Normally, agricultural markets do handle crop failures and increasing demand without large price swings. But the fast growing economies of China and India may be creating a very unusual spike in demand due to a change dietary choices.
Posted by: fostert | April 25, 2008 5:19 PM
a) Corn isn't the only source of biofuel
b) It isn't even the best source
So why are "biofuels" necessarily going to starve the poor?
Furthermore,
c) About 90% of the corn we grow is eaten by cows, not humans
d) If you ferment corn and make ethanol, the stuff that's left over ("dried distiller's grains") is actually better cattle feed than raw corn--the indigestible-to-cows sugar is gone, and the protein remains.
So even if we do use a lot of corn to make fuel... why is that necessarily going to starve anyone?
Posted by: Evan | April 25, 2008 5:32 PM
Evan-
corn is the source most easily used by farmers here in the US. There's also sugar ethanol and some switch-grass ethanol, but most farmers are used to growing corn, and they have the political power to mandate that the US use corn.
I'm curious where you get your 90% stat for being fed to cows...regardless, as Ezra said, corn is often grown in place of other crops since it can be sold more profitably for ethanol, thus driving down production of rice, etc.
Posted by: jamie | April 25, 2008 5:48 PM
It is the too rapid change. A gradual increase in food price woudl help the rural poor.
Posted by: Floccina | April 25, 2008 6:15 PM
Foreign Affairs article is from May 2007, btw.
Posted by: mikem | April 25, 2008 6:21 PM
"thus driving down production of rice, etc."
But it doesn't change the production of rice. Yes, wheat, barley, and other crops will be changed. But rice is a different kind of crop. You can't just convert between the two without extensive water control changes. And my travels to Asia tell me that nobody is converting rice fields to corn production. Why waste all that irrigation infrastructure you built to farm corn? You go from a situation where you want your field to flood to a situation where a flood will destroy your crop. That sounds like a lot of pumps and reservoirs to accomplish that. They are not crops that are easily substituted. Which is why its so strange that everybody talks about corn production when the rice shortage is the most acute.
Posted by: fostert | April 25, 2008 6:39 PM
Haiti's population is 9 million. So food subsidies to Haiti for 6 months would cost 9 million * $2 a day per person * 180 = 3.2 billion, or a week in Iraq. If you assume you only need to subsidise the poorest Haitians, it would cost less. Long-term we need a more systematic solution, but short-term there's a lot that could be done.
I think if we want cheaper food, that means we don't want fewer farm subsidies, it means we want more, maybe much more. But some of the farm subsidies currently directed to ethanol could temporarily be redirected to building a food surplus and towards donating a portion of grains to extreme poverty populations.
It's important to be careful not to play the blame game. It wasn't so long ago we were saying that first-world subsidies were artificially lowering food prices and impoverishing third-world farmers. Now we're saying that first-world subsidies are artificially raising food prices and starving third-world consumers.
Existing first-world subsidies are not the main point, I think, the point is to get a little extra purchasing power, or subsidized food, into the the hands of the extremely poor.
Posted by: roublen | April 25, 2008 6:44 PM
This sounds to me like not so much a food shortage as it is a people surplus.
Posted by: Brautigan | April 25, 2008 9:39 PM
How astute of you, Brautigan. I pray that its a sacastic observation only.
I wish Congress would react now that the results of these new subsidies have come to light. But that would take actual courage, right?
Posted by: BostonSatyr | April 25, 2008 10:13 PM
I'm with Brautigan on that. There is a huge people surplus in India. Not so much in China, because they have made efforts to control it. We're fine here in the US, as long as we only grow a little. But overpopulation is a real problem in some areas. And, yes, I know India can support itself with food for now. But if they start eating another meal per day, they won't be. And no democracy can sustain population controls. They'll just starve instead.
Posted by: fostert | April 25, 2008 10:46 PM
Fostert--the NY Times had a story about how a severe drought in Australia, coupled with shifts there from rice toward grape production has been a major driver increasing rice prices.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/business/worldbusiness/17warm.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=australia%2C+rice&st=nyt&oref=slogin
My guess as to why people conflate corn and general price shortages is that no one has a really good idea of what's going on because there are lots of factors for any crop and we can't understand them all. Also, laziness. We still talk about the subprime crisis, even though that's a very simplified way of describing the mortgage/credit issues we're having.
Posted by: brad | April 25, 2008 11:28 PM
Brad, I've seen that. I've also seen first hand the devastation that the monsoons had on the last rice crop in West Bengal and Bangladesh. That's even more rice than Australia ever produced, but that article seems to ignore that part of the problem. But major crop failures happen every few years. What's happening now is bigger than that. And yes, I know that Australia was once the biggest rice exporter in the world, but they don't eat much rice. Vietnam is now the biggest rice exporter in the world, and they eat the majority of the rice they produce. Thailand is a close second, and they eat most of their rice too. India produces more rice than Thailand and Vietnam combined, but eats almost all of it. The situation in Australia is not enough to explain what's happening with rice prices. Nor is the monsoon damage in India and Bangladesh. Nor is the drought in Africa. There's a demand spike, and we know what's causing it. It's just too painful to connect the dots. So we blame corn instead.
Posted by: fostert | April 26, 2008 12:25 AM
One tank of biofuel takes the same amount of corn that could feed one child for an entire year. Throwing our lunch in our gastanks is beyond stupid.
Posted by: Trig | April 26, 2008 7:42 AM
This is an interesting case that is part of a larger issue: the unintended consequences of reform. Whether biofeuls is a large, or only moderate part of the cause of food shortage, no one said that this might happen as the drum was being beaten for clean energy -- no one. Sound familiar? Like the unforeseen or undiscussed consequences of the Iraq war. This case bears thinking about by all those who propose universal healthcare. Does anyone really think out or think through the unintended consequences here??? Because such thought would involve stating at least some of the negative outcomes for medicine of such overarching change.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 26, 2008 7:43 AM
Evan is right. Much more corn (and other crops) is wasted being fed to animals. Sources here:
http://tinyurl.com/2lvbww
But rarely is anyone willing to make any real change in their life -- much easier to badmouth something / someone else, or blame the "system."
Posted by: John McCain: More of the Same | April 26, 2008 10:50 AM
as far as i can tell the entire existance of ethanol
comes back to one company, adm.
---------------------
Even Senator John McCain hit a kernel of truth in 2004:
"Ethanol is a product that would not exist if Congress didn’t create an artificial market for it. No one would be willing to buy it.... Yet thanks to agricultural subsidies and ethanol producer subsidies, it is now very big business—tens of billions of dollars that have enriched a handful of corporate interests—primarily one big corporation, ADM. Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality."
McCain’s song was different in the heart of corn country two years later: "I support ethanol and I think it is a vital alternative energy source not only because of our dependency on foreign oil but its greenhouse gas reduction effects."
McCain got it right the first time, 2004. But ADM is the reigning queen of corporate welfare, enjoying an incredible return on investment via their lavish campaign contributions, of which Senator McCain is now apparently tapping.
http://www.countercurrents.org/clifford120108.htm
Posted by: dj spellchecka | April 26, 2008 2:17 PM
The great thing about John McCain is that he switches his positions enough that he's always right some of the time. Who knows? Maybe if he's president, he'll do the right thing on corn ethanol. The problem, of course, is that he'll also bring about Armageddon with his crazy "bomb, bomb Iran" stuff. But when we're all dead, we won't have to worry about energy and food prices. Or global climate change, for that matter.
Posted by: fostert | April 26, 2008 2:31 PM
Sigh, I think you are all missing a much more obvious explanation for the rise in food prices. Rising oil prices. And I'm not talking about its effect on increasing demand for biofuels; I mean modern food production is very energy intensive. The fields are no longer fertilized with animal wastes, but instead with fertilizer created in an energy intensive process. It of course then must be transported to the fields and applied, which take more energy inputs. Often water has to be pumped to the fields, so there is some more energy, and the resulting crop has to be transported away, so yet more energy is used.
Everyone talking about peak oil have been saying it's going to screw up the global food system, and were starting to get a small taste of that.
P.S. yes corn based ethanol is stupid; it appears pretty clear that it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol then can be obtained from a gallon of ethanol.
Posted by: Jason K | April 26, 2008 5:33 PM
I advise everyone to not walk, but run, over to Nick Szabo's blog and read his post on this issue:
http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2008/04/hoarding-and-speculation-of-commodities.html
In short, does it seem mysterious to people that wheat, oil, palladium, silver, gold, rice, etc are all displaying the same run up in price? Does each commodity have its own peculiar crisis that is driving up its price? Or perhaps, in a time when Helicopter Ben is printing out money at an obscene rate, people are trading in their fast depreciating dollars for hard assets.
Posted by: Patrick Fitzsimmons | April 27, 2008 12:44 AM
Say it again: there are more World of Warcraft players than farmers.
Posted by: Allen K.
True, but World of Warcraft players, and people in industries directly involving or dependent on them, don't control 40 percent of Congress. (That percentage is ex recto and I'm too lazy to do all the math, but I'm talking about the disproportionate representation rural states have.)
Posted by: Cyrus | April 28, 2008 10:46 AM
"I was also proud to stand up for the ethanol tax exemption when it was
under attack in the Congress -- at one point, supplying a tie-breaking
vote in the Senate to save it. The more we can make this home-grown fuel a
successful, widely-used product, the better-off our farmers and our
environment will be."
http://clinton3.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OVP/speeches/farmj.html
Posted by: El Viajero | April 28, 2008 12:57 PM
This would help: get early primaries the hell out of Iowa.
Posted by: Neil B. | April 28, 2008 6:58 PM
"And no democracy can sustain population controls." - why not?
Posted by: ~ | April 28, 2008 7:06 PM
Global starvation partly partially due to increased ethanol production is absolutely horrible. It is a case of unforseen or at least unconsidered consequences straight out of a conservative case study.
My orginal feeling was that a rise in food prices was a good thing. Low food prices partially caused by U.S. and European subsidies make agricultural production in developing countries less viable. Since that is the main means of work in many of these countries many people are put into poverty due to cheap food.
There was a great piece in TNR about NAFTA causing the influx in illegal immigration because Mexican farms went out of business.
My question is this, is it possible to gradually raise food prices/ ethanol production so that other countries can produce at a level that will stem the need for food?
Posted by: j | April 29, 2008 10:28 AM
セックスがしたいと思い、出会い系サイトのセフレ募集のサイトをみていたら風俗よりもアダルトエロコミュニティサイトがおすすめと書いていて、半信半疑ながらも試してみたらなんと運がいい事でしょう、エロ目的の女の子と出会い、SEXすることができました。アダルト出会い系サイトなんて全部やらせだと思っていたけど案外いいかもしれない。風俗にいって高いお金を払ってセックスするよりも、人妻と不倫するよりも、一人淋しくビデオを借りてオナニーするよりも、案外こうゆう出会いサイトの方がエロくていいかもよ♪無料で登録できるしどこかに行く手間もはぶけるしいつでもどこでもエッチできるセフレとおまんこができるよ
Posted by: aaaaa | September 10, 2008 9:15 AM
デリヘル 大阪
仙台 デリヘル
仙台 風俗
仙台 デリヘル
仙台 風俗
仙台 デリヘル
仙台 風俗
滋賀 賃貸
滋賀県の賃貸
滋賀の賃貸
茶道具 買取
絵画 買取
骨董品 買取
家具 買取 大阪
電化製品 買取 大阪
貴金属 買取 大阪
リサイクルショップ 大阪
レザー
革小物
クレジットカード 現金化
現金化
ショッピング枠 現金化
キャッシング 即日 キャッシングサポート
現金化 即日 キャッシングサポート
キャッシング 即日 cash-supportサポート
キャッシング 即日 cash-support
クレジットカード 現金化
現金化
ショッピング枠 現金化
脱毛 大阪
埋没 大阪
わきが 大阪
オーロラ 大阪 クリニック
包茎 大阪
探偵 大阪
浮気調査 大阪
素行調査 大阪
別れさせ 大阪
吹田 美容室
エステ 尼崎
メナード 梅田
レンタルバイク
出張マッサージ 大阪
京都 賃貸
エステ 梅田
節水
フェラーリ
インプラント 福岡
インプラント 大阪
インプラント 大阪
インプラント 梅田
結婚 大阪
Posted by: gfds | September 15, 2009 6:51 AM
コンパ
合コン
婚活
携帯 ポイントカード
携帯 プロモーション
携帯 サービス
携帯 活用
カード ポイント 携帯
携帯 販促
リピーター 増やす
メルマガ配信 asp
felica ポイントカード
携帯電話 felica
ポイントシステム
ポイントカード
来店ポイント
アダルト SEO
被リンク
相互リンク
SEO
SEO 対策
風俗 SEO
SEO
SEO 大阪
大阪 SEO対策
SEO対策 大阪
ホームページ制作 seo 大阪
webコンサルティング
sem
sem対策
EFO
エントリーフォーム
エントリーフォーム最適化
問合せフォーム
申込フォーム
入力フォーム
エントリーフォーム 制作
コンバージョンアップ
離脱率
宅配食
配食
配食サービス
宅配弁当
介護食
健康食
ダイエット食
配達弁当
食材宅配
低カロリー食
幼児食
ヘルシー弁当
出前
メタボ
デリバリー
生活習慣病
発毛 大阪
育毛 大阪
植毛 大阪
うす毛 大阪
脱毛 大阪
抜け毛 大阪
ぬけ毛 大阪
若はげ 大阪
サロン大阪
増毛 大阪
カツラ 大阪
かつら 大阪
発毛促進 大阪
発毛クリニック 大阪
発毛専門 大阪
女性 育毛 大阪
抜け毛 女性 大阪
女性 薄毛 大阪
女性 発毛 大阪
カツラ 大阪 女性
薄毛 対策 大阪
ヘアケア 大阪
縮毛 矯正 大阪
薄毛治療 大阪
健康弁当
健康食
食育
食生活改善
糖尿病食
健康宅配
食習慣
腎臓病食
健康料理
健康管理
健康 レシピ
健康 栄養
メタボ 改善
メタボ食
ヘルシー弁当
低カロリー 弁当
弁当 通販
Posted by: gfsd | September 15, 2009 6:52 AM