Tuesday, August 07, 2012
Ethanol: hitting us right in the breadbasket?
Well, it's sure playing out that way.
Using food for fuel doesn't seem so smart right now; maybe, it never was...
Using food for fuel doesn't seem so smart right now; maybe, it never was...
Ricardo Lopez recently wrote about it in the LA times:
"A persistent drought compounds a problem already besetting farmers, they and agriculture economists said. About a third of the country's corn is diverted to produce ethanol under federal renewable energy standards. Ethanol production already had driven up the price of corn in recent years.
'The ethanol policy is a bad idea because the impacts of a drought are much more severe than it used to be,' said Colin Carter, a UC Davis agriculture economist.
Livestock producers have lobbied for changes to the ethanol policy, but to no avail. The ethanol issue underscores the severity of the problems in the animal industry, said Bill Mattos, president of the California Poultry Federation.
'When you have the drought adding to the uncertainty of prices, plus ethanol production,' he said. 'You have the perfect storm to devastate the livestock industry.'"
