Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Drought, Climate Change, Corn Prices, Ethanol and Biofuels

As we’ve all noticed there’s a drought going on in the American heartland. As many have noted this is leading to soaring prices of three main crops, corn wheat and soya. For that American heartland is the major source of export crops for all three (less so for soya than the other two to be sure).
We know that high food prices can kill poor people: this is not generally regarded as a good thing even though there are far too many small population fanatics around. Even they tend not to advocate starvation as a solution. We also know that both the US and the EU have mandates that insist that certain portions of transportation fuels must be provided by biofuels. That is, putting corn into cars rather than into starving people.
As a friend of mine in the UK, Andrew Montford, points out, this might not be the most humanitarian or logical method of dealing with the matter.

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/07/20/drought-climate-change-corn-prices-ethanol-and-biofuels/

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