Michael Foster wrote:
Ethanol from corn is a crime and people are dying from it.
Sorry Michael but no-one is dieing because of ethanol production. They
are dieing because the things they sell are not valuable enough to pay
for the oil, fertilizer, etc that goes into modern farming and western
foods. Their privative agricultural system can't feed them or half the
crops are lost to vermin, etc, after harvest. Also because some key
countries are in drought including Australia.
War and socialist follies do not help. At the beginning of the land
reform in Zimbabwe was a food exporting country even in drought. The
land reform trashed their farming capital base and now half Zimbabwe is
starving and half is not. It depends whose party you’re in. But even
Zanu-pf is running out of supplies to bribe the voters.
Darfur was not in drought or famine when the war there started; over
grazing drove the Janjaweed to invade farming country to their south.
Its Arabs verses blacks in a range war.
The famous tortilla riots in Mexico was caused by three things: Laws
that stopped the importation of grain, A hard won pay rise for the
'bakers union', and the rising price of Mexican gas. The Union blamed
ethanol to avoid the mob. There was also a plan to raise pensions to
match the cost of living rise but it got held up.
When you make ethanol you don't destroy the protein. It becomes
stillage, wet distiller’s grains or dry distiller’s grains depending on
the water content. It is calorie reduced but its protein enriched and
its still food. The world is not calorie short but it does have a
protein shortage. The distiller’s grain sold for $80 a ton and went to
livestock, pet food and in a few cases human food. The food industry in
the USA and Europe could not quickly use the stuff because of red tape
and the simple fact that their factories use augers to move grains and
distillers grains clag up augers. For every ton of ethanol produced
later this year there will be a ton of dry distiller’s grains and they
have fixed the augers.
When you make biodiesel from soy you make an equal quantity of soy meal
(oilseed press cake) or 5 tons of soy flour per ton of biodiesel. Soy
meal is processed into livestock and pet food. Soy flour is textured
protein, mock meat, protein filler in foods etc. We're all eating it.
The world food situation is complex and full of change. We have new
foods, new crops and agricultural systems developing. Salt tolerant
grains are deploying in some countries and integrated biological pest
management (pesticide free) is being deployed. A hundred NGO's are
teaching organic agriculture across the third world. For the first time
in decades European and American surpluses aren't being dumped on third
world countries at prices that bankrupt the local farmers.
It would be nice if the drought broke, there wasn't a flood destroying
the US crop right now on the Mississippi and the media noticed organic
agricultures success stories. But we can't have everything.
PS I have a degree in organic agriculture and sustainable development so
I get to do my bit.
