Ethanol boondoggle

 has a global impact

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

NOW WE know why a United Nations official called the biofuels craze “a crime against humanity.”

When U.N. hunger expert Jean Ziegler spoke out last year against ethanol and other biofuels, he seemed to be exaggerating legitimate concerns about the impact of biofuel production on global food supplies. But that was before food riots began breaking out in a number of developing nations, causing the fall of one government (Haiti’s) and prompting the leaders of some Asian countries to call out troops to protect dwindling supplies of rice.

The price of rice a food staple for half the world’s population has doubled in the past year. Prices for corn, wheat and other staples also are soaring.

Western nations aren’t exempt from the food crisis. In Italy, consumer groups are calling for a “pasta strike” to protest a 20 percent increase in the price of spaghetti, fettuccine and linguine.

The United States has the world’s most productive agricultural economy, but Americans are feeling the pain of high food prices, too.

Milk prices have increased by 50 percent, in large part because of the diversion of corn, which is used to feed livestock, to ethanol production. The prices of dozens of products made with corn are rising, increasing the pressure on the weak U.S. economy.

Greg Barrow, who works for the U.N.’s World Food Program, told the Voice of America that high fuel prices, increased demand for food commodities from the growing economies of China and India and the “phenomenon of biofuels production” are driving the food crisis.

There are no ready-made solutions for the first two factors cited by the U.N. official. But the biofuels boondoggle was created by politicians in the United States and Western Europe who wanted to be associated with feel-good environmentalism.

Now that the worst consequences of this public policy disaster increased global hunger and starvation are evident to all, the politicians responsible for it have a moral obligation to correct their mistake.

That group includes the Democratic and Republican members of Congress who voted for legislation vastly increasing federally subsidized ethanol production. It also includes President George W. Bush, who has touted ethanol and other alternative fuels.

The idea, of course, was to help the environment. But ethanol does little to combat pollution and climate change. It’s a less efficient fuel source than petroleum, and it takes a great of deal of environmentally unfriendly energy in the form of diesel fuel for farm equipment to produce it.

Washington’s long-time infatuation with biofuels has driven a lot of money to the bottom line of agri-business giant Archer Daniels Midland, which produces about half of the nation’s ethanol.

Americans often complain about the supposedly baleful political influence of Big Oil. It’s time they started griping about the power of Big Farm.

Maybe President Bush and other ethanol boosters would listen if the public protested the biofuels debacle. The global food crisis should be enough to persuade our leaders that increased hunger is not an acceptable trade-off for the minimal environment benefits of ethanol and other biofuels.

Lee ADDS: This was written in the Mobile Press Register and is an echo of my words saying” Food is Food…Foods is NOT Fuel”