One quarter of US grain crops fed to cars - not people, new figures show

[depakid]

A grain elevator in Illinois, US. In 2009, 107m tonnes of grain was grown by US farmers to be blended with petrol.
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One-quarter of all the maize and other grain crops grown in the US now ends up as biofuel in cars rather than being used to feed people, according to new analysis which suggests that the biofuel revolution launched by former President George Bush in 2007 is impacting on world food supplies.

The 2009 figures from the US Department of Agriculture shows ethanol production rising to record levels driven by farm subsidies and laws which require vehicles to use increasing amounts of biofuels.

"The grain grown to produce fuel in the US was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels," said Lester Brown, the director of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington thinktank ithat conducted the analysis.

Last year 107m tonnes of grain, mostly corn, was grown by US farmers to be blended with petrol. This was nearly twice as much as in 2007, when Bush challenged farmers to increase production by 500% by 2017 to save cut oil imports and reduce carbon emissions.



More than 80 new ethanol plants have been built since then, with more expected by 2015, by which time the US will need to produce a further 5bn gallons of ethanol if it is to meet its renewable fuel standard.

According to Brown, the growing demand for US ethanol derived from grains helped to push world grain prices to record highs between late 2006 and 2008. In 2008, the Guardian revealed a secret World Bank report that concluded that the drive for biofuels by American and European governments had pushed up food prices by 75%, in stark contrast to US claims that prices had risen only 2-3% as a result.

Since then, the number of hungry people in the world has increased to over 1 billion people, according to the UN's World Food programme.

"Continuing to divert more food to fuel, as is now mandated by the US federal government in its renewable fuel standard, will likely only reinforce the disturbing rise in world hunger. By subsidising the production of ethanol to the tune of some $6bn each year, US taxpayers are in effect subsidising rising food bills at home and around the world," said Brown.

"The worst economic crisis since the great depression has recently brought food prices down from their peak, but they still remain well above their long-term average levels."

The US is by far the world's leading grain exporter, exporting more than Argentina, Australia, Canada, and Russia combined. In 2008, the UN called for a comprehensive review of biofuel production from food crops.

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/22/quarter-us-grain-biofuels-food

[Mind_your_head]

1. High fructose corn syrup for cars ~ instead of people ~ is okay by me n/t

[Make7]

2. No wonder 33.8% of our cars are overweight. ( n/t )

[Sebastian Doyle]

3. Stop the insanity

Use hemp for ethanol, sugar for food, and fuck all this corn in everything horseshit.

[truedelphi]

4. In other nations, they use the HUSKS from the corn rather than the corn

Itself.

Which is something I am sure we are starting to figure out. That is, if those in the know make enough noise about how to do this properly, rather than allowing some hysteria that we have to choose between the fuel for our cars or the fuel for our bodies to dominate the discussion.

it is not either/or.

[tom_paine]

5. Looks like the Bush Plan is well underway on all fronts.

I kind of wish that the environmentalists and others HADN'T gotten through to the Bushies. In spite of their public pronouncements (generally as diametrically opposed to their real intentions as any run-of-the-mill tyrants), it is quite clear they know something VERY BAD is going to happen and they are swifty preparing it and us, their livestock & feedstock, for the coming future.

After all, they now know they have about 5 billion too many livestock, which is to say we serfs/peasants/Plebs, and they will all have to go before too long.

They are just prepping the Cattle Pen for the dieoff, and making sure that they and theirs will be safe inside their gated castles while the Plebs play Mad Max outside.

[JohnWxy]

6. actually, only about 5% of the corn crop is sweet corn for people.. Also, all the protein in the

the corn used to make ethanol is recoveered and becomes high protein (and nutrient) cattle feed supplement (Dried Distillers Grains and Solubles, DDGS). So it really isn't a quarter of the corn crop becausse the DDGS replaces some corn as animal feed.


Oh, and by the way, MORE corn is used for animal feed than goes to making ethanol: