[AGL] Who'd a thought it?

[michele mason]

The Truth just seems to twist and turn in the wind.  mm

On Jan 30, 2007, at 5:50 PM, Gerry wrote:


> US government subsidized corn is the bane of world agriculture, so 

> cheap

> that indigenous farmers by the millions have given up trying to 

> compete and

> headed to town. NAFTA made it exportable to Mexico, nominally a large

> producer of corn. But the US corn was so cheap it drove hundreds of

> thousands (at least--trying not to exaggerate) of growers off the 

> farms (and

> across the border). All this was in the days of huge corn surpluses 

> when the

> price per bushel was miniscule and there seemed to be no limit to the

> supply.

>

> Leave it up to the government to change the course. No one ever 

> thought that

> the price of corn would rise precipitously. Huh? Yes, alas, the great

> Ethanol Boondoggle has driven up the price of corn to what threatens 

> to be

> all time highs. By lavishing billions on the builders of ethanol 

> production

> plants the government (Bush and Repug congress with full complicity 

> from

> corn state Demos like Barack Obama) they have created a corn shortage. 

> The

> whole world strung out on American corn, and the supply drying up.

>

> Read last week that the price of tortillas in Mexico has risen 

> alarmingly.

> Now, totally dependent on US imported corn they are way up the creek 

> without

> a paddle. How to get those farmers to come home and plant? Well, if 

> they

> can, at current prices maybe we can start importing corn from Mexico, 

> to

> make ethanol...

>

> Here's a good story on the subject.

> G

>

>

>

>> ETHANOL THREATENS FOOD AID

>> By Philip Brasher

>> Des Moines Register

>> January 14, 2007

>>

>> America's appetite for fuel ethanol could take food away from some of

>> the world's poorest people.

>>

>> The price of corn and other crops is soaring because of the demand

>> for grain to make ethanol, a gasoline additive, and that means that

>> the government's budget won't buy as much food as it used to. The

>> price of corn alone, a key food in Africa, has more than doubled in

>> the past year.

>>

>> The pinch is already being felt.

>>

>> Catholic Relief Services, one of several organizations that

>> distribute U.S.-donated food in Africa and Latin America, expects to

>> deliver 161,000 tons this year, down from 200,000 tons last year.

>>

>> "In the long run, it means that we are fueling our cars with food

>> that people might have eaten. There are important trade-offs," said

>> Lisa Kuennen-Asfaw, director of public resources for the

>> Baltimore-based group.

>>

>> The biggest global distributor of food aid, the World Food Program of

>> the United Nations, also is being squeezed by the demand for crops to

>> make biofuels. The price the program paid for Argentine soybean oil

>> was up 37% last year. The cost of Malaysian palm oil rose 33%.

>>

>> Congress could increase funding for food aid to make up for the

>> higher commodity prices. But if history is a guide, that likely won't

>> happen.

>>

>> Americans, and especially American farmers, take pride in feeding the

>> world's hungry, but the truth is that the government's food-aid

>> programs historically have at least as much to do with helping U.S.

>> agribusiness interests as helping the poor.

>>

>> The last time there was a similar surge in commodity prices --- in

>> the mid-1990s --- government food purchases fell sharply but

>> rebounded when global commodity prices collapsed a few years later.

>>

>> Purchases fell more than 40% from 1994 to 1996, but shot from 3.5

>> million to 10 million tons from 1998 to 1999. Since then, the volume

>> of food has varied from year to year, but the overall budget has been

>> relatively flat, and that worries aid organizations.

>>

>> "When commodity prices go up, food assistance will necessarily tend

>> to go down because food aid has to be bought," said Gawain Kripke of

>> Oxfam America, a development group.

>>

>> Look for farm-state lawmakers to argue that the rise in commodity

>> prices isn't such a bad thing for poor countries.

>>

>> After all, critics of U.S. food aid programs have long argued that

>> the donations can sometimes drive down the prices paid to local

>> farmers in regions where the commodities are distributed.

>>

>> "One of the things that could happen is that with prices going up

>> overall that could encourage agriculture in these countries," said

>> Rep. Collin Peterson, the Minnesota Democrat who now chairs the House

>> Agriculture Committee.

>>

>> That's true, but the higher commodity prices won't be much help in

>> the poorest countries, where farmers often can grow only enough food

>> to feed themselves and their families, according to aid groups.

>>

>> Meanwhile, there's little sign that the surge in the ethanol industry

>> is letting up. The industry is on track to add six billion gallons of

>> production --- more than twice the current capacity --- as existing

>> construction is completed over the next year or so.

>>

>> The Earth Policy Institute, an environmental think tank, recently

>> warned that the ethanol industry will be consuming 5.5 billion

>> bushels of corn a year, more than half of what was produced

>> nationwide in 2006, if the recent pace of construction starts

>> continues into this year.

>>

>> The biofuels boom isn't limited to the United States, either. Europe

>> is ramping up production of biodiesel from vegetable oils to reduce

>> the use of petroleum and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

>>

>> "It's very clear that we need to work on environmental and

>> conservation issues and other kinds of concerns that affect the

>> American public," said Kuennen-Asfaw, referring to the potential

>> benefits of alternative energy sources.

>>

>> "But we also have to think about the direction we're going in for

>> poor people around the world."

>>

>