Famine, Thanks to Biofuels

In a recent interview on NPR, a Mr. Zelig, head of the World Bank, was asked about the nasty situation developing with food prices around our planet. We have seen some food riots in Haiti recently, and other places as well. Basically, anywhere that poor people have no extra money to absorb a rise in food costs, there is trouble right now. Simply stated, food prices are up everywhere. Rice, wheat, corn- especially corn- are steeply up.

Actually, the warning sign that usually precedes a large famine is a spike in prices. People start noticing that there are too many mouths and not enough nutriment to go in. What next? Well, if you are selling food, you say, hey, I could continue to practically give the stuff away, or I could make more money. Look, starving people do not argue with you, they give you whatever you ask for. When they run out of money, somebody else does not, and you sell your product either way.

One big big factor in all this is the biofuel craze. We have decided as a species that it makes more sense to put our food into the tank of our car than our stomachs. Ooh, sensible- only until you get hungry. Then it no longer looks sensible. Ah yes- but if you can feed your car tank plus your mouth, do you care if your action results in increased prices for basic foodstuffs in Africa? No you don't care. But yeah, the corn ethanol thing is not real good for Africans. Great if you live in Iowa, you are making good money now.

My point here is that no man is an Island. Corn ethanol really made little sense even as an internal USA matter, as we end up spending more for food and saving very little on gas prices. We do not even get a chance to get drunk on it. But look at the big picture- the human race is a net loser in this thing. The pie is not any bigger. We are just trying to re-slice it so that the USA slice looks yummier. But somebody is thereby losing. Not just having a bad week either. When I say losing, I mean, somebody is going to be dead if this keeps on going this way.

The International Monetary Fund is now ringing alarm bells on this problem. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who presides over the IMF, warned yesterday that if food prices remain high (and they will, by the way) there will be dire consequences in Africa. The IMF believes that fully half the increase in world food prices can be attributed to the rise in biofuels such as ethanol, palm oil, etc. Germany's development minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, called for greater regulation of biofuels: "It is unacceptable for the export of agrofuels to pose a threat to the supply situation of the very people already living in poverty".

So, are you happy if corn ethanol results in your gasoline cost going down a couple of pennies? Next question, are you still going to be happy next year when you watch the news and there are dead bodies all over Africa? There is a connection.