Ethanol Mandates Cause Rising Food Prices

Food prices are rising worldwide. Some nations, such as Egypt and Cameroon, are facing riots as the prices for basic food stuffs rise. Other countries from India to Cambodia have banned food exports to try and keep prices low and reduce voter anger.

Corn has experienced the most phenomenal rise. Corn, which averaged around $2 a bushel from 2002 to 2006, rose to over $4 per bushel in 2007 and is now over $6 per bushel.

The U.S. has long been a major exporter of grains, but the quantity going to ethanol are enormous. We are expected this year to convert 3.53 billion bushels of corn into ethanol. There are about 280 medium length ears of corn in a bushel. To put it differently, just the corn used to produce ethanol this year could provide 104 million people with 2,000 calories every day for a year.

The irony is that ethanol also produces much less energy than gasoline. A car that gets 30 miles per gallon on gas would get only 20 miles per gallon on ethanol. Without the subsidies and the mandates, ethanol would have to be less than two thirds the price of gas before it would pay for people to use.

Environmental regulations are bad enough when they simply do nothing more than waste Americans’ money. But we live in a world economy and using massive amounts of corn and grain to make ethanol means that poor people from Africa to Bangladesh have less to eat.

[again: whatch how long it takes government to correct its obvious error]

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