So today, I'm in my Russian Film discussion section and we're discussing montages (thrilling) and of course, this is an opening for me to take out my laptop and start looking through the days news. Most of the stuff is election coverage, which can be interesting, but at this point, is also downright frustrating. Hillary Clinton's recent claim to be ahead in the popular vote provides the most recent example of the caricature of a good election campaign. She's wrong unless she's in her own Hillary-verse. To be honest, I've lost my patience with her and am looking forward to her being out of the picture come June (hopefully). Thankfully, The Daily Show and Colbert Report do their usual flawless job of skewering the nonsense that goes on during the election season.
That's small potatoes though. I'm not sure how I found this on Yahoo! of all place (it's still the first place I go for news), but there's a recent report from Foreign Affairs titled "How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor". The report is chilling. From what I understand of it (the authors clearly have a leg up on me), rising fuel prices have led to an increase in biofuel production. The government is providing subsidies for corn and soy grown for ethanol, which in turn encourages farmers big and small to grow the stuff. This does two things:
- Decreases the amount of corn available for consumption, raising the price of corn
- Decreased farmland available to grow other crops, including staples like wheat
This is not just a problem in the US, as many countries are seeking to decrease their dependence on oil and look to biofuels using staple crops to supplement their energy. Brazil is an exception because they use sugarcane - not a staple. The problem with that is that the increased demand for the grains raises the prices, which makes it more difficult for poor people to afford those same staple foods for their own nutrition. There's already unrest and riots around the world as prices rise, throwing governments into turmoil (Haiti's food riots have led to deaths and demands for the resignation of the Prime Minister). According to the report, if prices continue to rise and governments continue to turn to staple crops to produce biofuels (i.e. corn, rice, manioc, etc.), the prices of these foods will continue to rise until by 2025, they predict that about 1.2 billion people will be considered "chronically hungry" as they are simply unable to afford the basics.
Here's the kicker. There's no great reason why we need to use corn or soy to produce biofuels. In fact, there are more efficient sources for biofuel out there that can be pursued with some research. You can use grass, trees, anything of the sort to get the same effect. So why are we using corn and soy? We have the technology, so that's easy enough. But also, surprise surprise, there's plenty of special interests in the way of corn and soy growers and Archer Daniels Midland. Special interests pervade. And of course, we won't import our biofuel from Brazil because we need to protect American interests. I'm not sure if that's bad or not for America, but it's certainly a dangerous path considering global food supplies.
So what does that mean to me? Well...maybe I should become a plant geneticist. Who knows?
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