Biofuel Liberals Are Killing People

The news in Ethiopia isn’t good:

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. humanitarian office said Monday that food shortages in Ethiopia have reached alarming levels following widespread drought in the country.

Relief organizations are grappling with a “considerable shortage of supplies,” with the U.N. World Food Program in need of $136 million for its operation in the Horn of Africa nation, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said.

Why are relief organizations grappling with such a “considerable shortage of supplies”?  Because, as an Economist article titled, “Cheap no more” puts it:

Rising incomes in Asia and ethanol subsidies in America have put an end to a long era of falling food prices

We can’t do anything about rising incomes in Asia.  But we can do something about ethanol subsidies in America.  We can end them.

The Economist puts it this way:

Normally, sky-high food prices reflect scarcity caused by crop failure. Stocks are run down as everyone lives off last year’s stores. This year harvests have been poor in some places, notably Australia, where the drought-hit wheat crop failed for the second year running. And world cereals stocks as a proportion of production are the lowest ever recorded. The run-down has been accentuated by the decision of large countries (America and China) to reduce stocks to save money.

Yet what is most remarkable about the present bout of “agflation” is that record prices are being achieved at a time not of scarcity but of abundance. According to the International Grains Council, a trade body based in London, this year’s total cereals crop will be 1.66 billion tonnes, the largest on record and 89m tonnes more than last year’s harvest, another bumper crop. That the biggest grain harvest the world has ever seen is not enough to forestall scarcity prices tells you that something fundamental is affecting the world’s demand for cereals.

An article appearing in The Globalist says:

The soaring demand for crop-based fuel is coming when world grain stocks are at
The price of oil becomes the support price for food commodities. Whenever the food value of a commodity drops below its fuel value, the market will convert it into fuel.
the lowest level in 34 years and when there are 76 million more people to feed each year.

The U.S. investment in biofuel production in response to runaway oil prices is spiraling out of control, threatening to draw grain away from the production of beef, pork, poultry, milk and eggs.

And, most seriously, the vast number of distilleries in operation, under construction and in the planning stages threaten to reduce the amount of grain available for direct human consumption. Simply put, the stage is being set for a head-on collision between the world’s 800 million affluent automobile owners and food consumers.

Michael Grunwald comes to the same conclusions in his Time Magazine article, “The Clean Energy Scam.”

When the price of feed corn increases, the price of many other staple foods increases, driving up the overall cost of food domestically.

And as the price of corn – a major staple and fundamental food source – skyrockets, it becomes more and more difficult to feed the growing numbers of the world’s hungry.

In the name of this child, and so many others, please demand an end to this boondoggle that not only fails to produce the inexpensive energy it promises, but results in food shortages and starvation.

Tags: biofuel, children, corn, demand, ethanol, Ethiopia, food, hunger, price, shortage, UN, United Nations, world