Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75%, according to a World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

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Oh god... I just disputed this over on Arborist site. Its a total crock, with the statistics scued how the author wanted them... This is about as reliable as Al Gore's "Proof" of Global Warming.

 

Its true that stats can be manipulated to support any point...but I think the concern over the source of biofuels is legitimate.

 

I live in Wisconsin, and if this load of crap really were true, then the thousands of abandoned farms in upper Wisconsin would quickly be snatched up by money grubbing investors and farmers hired to run the show, growing the cash crops (corn and soybeans) again. These farms, one by one, went out of business because of the lack of demand for crops.

I call B.S. on all this BioFuel bashing.

This year though with all the flooding destroying all the crops, yes the prices will continue to rise until the farmers can recover. This plays right into the biobashers hands by blaming the price rise on bio fuel production.

Believe what you wish, Al Gore has plenty of room for you in his flock of Sheepole.

 

PhatB is totally right as far as the Iowa flooding has driven up corn futures like nothing in recent history. Ethanol plants are scraping for dent corn to make product, and with the subsidies they can pay top dollar for a bushel of corn.

Keep in mind, a lot of farm grown crop is not palletable, just like the GE Corn used for growing ethanol. It cannot be put in the human food network at all, and this corn has been around long before Bio-fuels were all the rage. Sure a few acres here and there will go from food products to bio-fuel products, but paying less at the pump and more at the grocery store kinda evens things out (not entirely, but you get the idea). And ethanol only requires the sugars in corn, and that is indeed all they use. Distillers grain is fed to poultry chickens, cattle, milkers, pigs, lamb, pullets, turkeys, you name it... So it is ending up back in the human food chain, just a little more processed.

 

Never thought of that...

 

I've read all kinds of BS news stories on line like the reason some food prices are so high is because a lot feed goes to feed live stock. I read one from a guy who said that no crop land should be used to grow any crop that can't be fed to humans. I think if the 3rd world countries are short on food then they need to plant more or buy what they can grow but don't be telling anyone here in the USA what they can or can not plant on there land.

 

I said this before, different site, but as far as these losers go who are complaining about the price of produce, get over it, its not coming down. Capitalism is what this country is based on, why should Joe the farmer have to grow Sweet Corn on his land to feed you cheaply, then go home and feed his family rice and beans because he can't afford anything else? He shouldn't! He should be able to plant G.E. Dent Corn and feed his family the same things you do, and still have a bit of money left over to play with each year. That's how businesses run in every other industry. When the price of steel goes up, nobody whines about it and tells the gold mining companies they have to start mining Iron because they want cheap steel do they? Of course not! So why should anyone be able to tell a Canola Farmer to grow Corn or Wheat or Soy so they can eat a meal for $.04 cheaper? Its a total crock. When the Ethanol bubble burst's, you can buy all the cheap dent corn you want, because there WILL be a surplus of it... Then again, good luck eating it.