I found it interesting that in all his discussion of corn, corn as actual fuel is never mentioned. My dad used to work for BP and Amaco. It always amazed him that people thought they were helping the environment by buying fuel made from corn. Looking at the overall inputs, it is more energy intensive and expensive to make fuel from corn that it is from refinement of oil. It strips the soil of natural resources and produces less energy. I wonder if this is the same grade corn (2) discussed in the paper or if it is even a lower grade. While the sugar cane derivative fuel is very stable and efficient, over 90% of the ethanol fuel in this country is made of corn. There are the same government incintives for this use of corn making the same destructive cycle of: corn floods market, drop in prices, government covers costs, yeilding more corn. You cannot blame the farmers. If someone would pay me to make something whether or not it was ever put to good use (or any use at all) and I needed the money, I would make all of it I could.
As Pallon states, this problem is creating new health risks. The overuse of antibiotics is a huge concern currently, and the beef market is only making it worse by the continual use of antibiotics in feed. Pathogenic bacteria like E. Coli 0157:H7 and MRSA were unheard of 30 years ago, yet I know two people that are currently being treated for one of these. The scary part is that this is just the beginning. It will only get worse.
However destructive the corn industry is, there is a true need for cheap food in this country at this time. Buying organic and local is nice in theory, but when cucumbers are 2 for $7.00 (go to the Franklin Farmers Market and see for yourself), it is impractical. Side Note: The Nashville Farmers Market is organic but not local, some of that food is shipped from 5,000 miles away, while all the food from the Franklin's farmers market is from 150 miles away or less. Until there are more incentives to buy local and organic, it is only for the relatively wealthy that this is even an option. Once again, the poor are delegated to the worst available yeilding more health problems, yeilding more costs, resulting in people caught in a cycle of poverty. Diabetes and obesity in this country are at an all time high. Ironically, people are working more hours in the work week than ever before. It is a vicious cycle and corn is barely the tip of the iceburg.
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Interesting points. My family actually has a small (600 acre) farm that we rotate between cotton and corn on. This year the corn market really skyrocketed, tripling in value from what it was a couple years ago. While some of this is defiantly the weakening of the dollar, a share of this turned out to be speculation and development of ethanol. While it may seem like a good idea at first, after delving deeper into thought using corn based ethanol as more than an additive in fuel doesn't make logical sense. I mean food for fuel won't work for long; eventually it will become just as expensive as gas while driving up the produce prices in the mean time.
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