Comments on: Find Out What Really Drives Food Prices (It Ain’t Ethanol)

By: Gary Chrismon

Gary Chrismon — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:44:55 +0000

MY my, bio fuels use 4% of the world’s grain supply and this reduces gasoline and diesel costs by 16-25%. Pretty powerful stuff. This makes me worry about how much money is REALLY coming out of taxpayer pockets in the form of biofuel subsidies.
Your argument is so full of holes, I don’t know where to start so I’ll just attack one statement. It makes no difference what kind of corn is used for ethanol production. If feed corn goes up, then food corn goes up. If you are a farmer that produces food corn and say you are getting $4/bushel and your neighbor is producing yellow dent corn and it is bringing $7.50/ bushel, you are a really dumb farmer if you don’t switch to yellow dent, thereby creating a shortage of food corn. Secondly when one type of grain goes up dramatically, with it comes all other grains as well as all grain byproducts. Animal feeds have gone up well over 100% in the last year, causing the price of beef, pork and chicken to skyrocket. Fertilizer prices tripled last year to the point that if you were not a grain farmer, you couldn’t afford it. This means that if you are a cow calf operator in the U.S. you cannot afford to fertilize. This results in less grazing, less hay, a forced reduction in herd size and increased cost of beef cost to the consumer.

By: R. Taub

R. Taub — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:20:05 +0000

Some links on the tortilla deal: Wash Post Boing Boing - which is more skeptical I'm not raging against Ethanol, only saying it's not as great as some cheesy lobbyist website says it is.

By: angelique van engelen

angelique van engelen — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:13:05 +0000

Thanks for those comments. Normally I would not re-hash the info off of a site but this was too useful despite the cheezy name.
Ray, I agree that Ethanol has many many problems not least its environmental impact, but one thing it can¬¥t be blamed for is rising food prices.
What makes you believe it has an influence on the price of tortillas in Mexico?

By: Ray Taub

Ray Taub — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:56:43 +0000

First of all, I hate websites with names like “FoodPriceTruth” .. it’s arrogant and sounds reactionary. Hilariously, if you type .com instead of .org, it redirects to an anti-ethanol group.
I definitely agree that high food prices are caused by OIL PRICES and not ethanol, however there is some truth to the idea that ethanol driven corn prices caused the price of tortillas to rise in Mexico.
Ethanol is not without many, many problems so please do some homework before making blanked praise posts like this, you come across as ignorant and a shill.

By: Auntie Pearl

Auntie Pearl — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:54:14 +0000

Agree with the previous comment…Thx for this. It’s struck me as unlikely that corn ethanol was as large a factor in food price rises as was being claimed…Good to know there’s a source of good, accurate info out there…

By: Steve N. Lee

Steve N. Lee — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:28:08 +0000

A very informative post. And thanks for the link to FoodPriceTruth which I’ll certainly be checking out.
It amazes me how people fall for mass manipulation time and again – something I’ve pointed out on my blog umpteen times. Some people get it, but, sadly, many are in denial and think I’m talking garbage!
I hope when you spell out the facts so clearly people might take notice and start believing the truth. Though, I guess they may just as easily think FoodPriceTruth is some communist organization out to confuse the American people and lead them into an economic wilderness so Russia can finally overpower the world! :-0 Or maybe not.
Thanks for the myth-busting!
Steve N. Lee
author of eco-blog http://www.lionsledbysheep.com
and suspense thriller ‘What if…?’