In a blog entry February 2, 2007, I made the connection between the rush to use more corn to make more ethanol and the subsequent impact on the food supply and the Mexican economy. I wrote in my blog:
"Excitement over ethanol, a renewable fuel made with corn, has reached such a high level that there has been a virtual rush on corn. The effects have been devastating, especially in Mexico with a society, culture, and way of life dominated by the tortilla. Tortillas make up 40 percent of the diet for poor Mexicans, and with corn prices quadrupling in Mexico since last summer, Mexico is suffering through its worst tortilla crisis.
Exorbitant tortilla costs created by the buzz about ethanol have left few alternatives in Mexico. Mexicans who can afford food are bypassing tortillas for options that are less healthy, so they are gaining weight. The poor are eating less, eating less healthy, or going hungry.
There are many concerns about ethanol, its effect on world hunger being the latest. Because corn is used to produce ethanol, it requires so much water, energy and land to produce, making its benefits highly questionable. Evidence suggests that ethanol costs more, harms the environment, and reduces gas mileage. Ethanol has been known to wreak havoc on small engines, and now it is likely to wreak havoc on the food supply."Apparently I am not alone in this analysis.
One week after my blog, Caspar Weinberger, the son of the late U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, and writer and lecturer on world events, has written a column making the same essential point:
"The issue is corn and the skyrocketing prices for tortillas, a flat bread made of white cornmeal. Since this food is the basic staple of the poor of Mexico, any dramatic rise in its price is bound to cause misery and outrage among the working and impoverished classes of America's southern neighbor. Over the last year, Mexican tortilla prices have more than doubled and now cost about 45 cents a pound. What is really behind the spike in this commodity appears to be the relatively new push in North America for alternative fuels to help rid the Western Hemisphere and particularly the U.S. of its dependence on foreign oil. As a result, ethanol is now the latest domestic fuel alternative under massive development."You can read Weinberger's entire column
here.Some of the same concerns I have raised about ethanol were the subject of the cover story in the February 12, 2007 print edition of
U.S. News & World Report.
The Wall Street Journal has editorialized about big corn and the consequences of ethanol.
The Earth Policy Institute believes the more ethanol we produce, the fewer people we will feed.
Edwin Black is the author of Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives. Black says corn ethanol is a bad idea, America's next big fuel mistake.
Consumer Reports has conducted tests showing vehicles get poorer fuel economy from gas containing ethanol.
University of Minnesota researchers have concluded that even if we used every cob of corn, we would not solve America's energy's problems.
Will ethanol wreak havoc on the food supply? With too many doubts remaining and plenty of documentation to warrant concern, the jury is still out on ethanol.
