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Post by redwolf on Dec 19, 2007 8:27:21 GMT -6
Food and Fuel Compete for LandBy ANDREW MARTIN An excerpt from the NY Times article: "For years, cheap food and feed were taken for granted in the United States.
But now the price of some foods is rising sharply, and from the corridors of Washington to the aisles of neighborhood supermarkets, a blame alert is under way.
Among the favorite targets is ethanol, especially for food manufacturers and livestock farmers who seethe at government mandates for ethanol production. The ethanol boom, they contend, is raising corn prices, driving up the cost of producing dairy products and meat, and causing farmers to plant so much corn as to crowd out other crops." www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/business/18food.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=login&oref=login
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Dec 19, 2007 15:19:32 GMT -6
Very interesting article.
Someone is finally acknowledging that grocery prices are increasing faster than the CPI. (CPI: +4.3% vs. Grocery Prices: +5.4%). However, the +5.4% still seems understated. By a lot.
Food prices have been rising rapidly since Bush stole his 1st election in 2000. Most of that increase cannot be attributed to ethanol. Much of it, however, could reasonably be blamed on increased fuel prices.
In fact, the article states that increased fuel prices are a major cause. If ethanol can be substituted for petroleum products as fuel, it reduces the demand for petroleum fuel products, which would put downward pressure on petroleum fuel prices.
By adding ethanol to the total supply of available fuel, overall fuel prices should be reduced, or at least their rate rate of increase should be reduced. Reducing fuel prices, by increasing the total fuel supply, should reduce food price increases attributable to fuel costs. If nothing else, it should at least slow price increases.
It certainly seems advantageous that more money now paid for fuel goes to American farmers, instead of foreign oil producers. Also, as the article states: "much of the newly required ethanol could be made from agricultural wastes like corn stalks and straw." Thus farmers would now have a new use (and demand) for previously worthless by-products. That's a huge benefit by itself.
Each new source of fuel reduces the demand for petroleum-based fuel. Though many make only small contributions, the combined total of new sources can make a significant difference.
Ethanol can also be made from other sources besides corn. Two are already in use at present--sugar cane and sugar beets. We already have vast sources of sugar cane in the Hawaiian Islands.
Wouldn't it be better to put additional Americans to work to producing ethanol & alternate fuels, instead of propping up foreign oil producers and foreign oil industry employment?
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