Fueling Scarcity

The cover of The Economist's recent issue illustrates the stark reality of food costs; the cheap prices with which we've all been pampered are now threatened by changes in crop demands. Due to rising incomes in Asia and ethanol subsidies in the states, foods which once served as the staple in many diets are being diverted into production of - what else - meat and cars.

The increasing wealth in China and India means that a greater number of now-affluent individuals are able to spend more on their meals. The splurge of choice is, of course, meat. The average Chinese went from eating 44 lbs of meat in 1985 to more than 100 lbs in 2007, and the demand for grains that were once consumed directly has now grown exponentially in order to fuel meat production. Calorie for calorie, you need more grain if you eat it transformed into meat than if you eat it as bread: it takes three kilograms of cereals to produce a kilo of pork, eight for a kilo of beef. So a shift in diet is multiplied many times over in the grain markets.

More important than the recent Chinese taste for beef, however, is the American addiction to driving, and our now clinging desperation to justify this lifestyle with ethanol. The United States is world's largest producer and exporter of maize, but we now use more of our annual crop for ethanol production than is sold abroad. From 15 million tonnes in 2000, we now devote 85 million to ethanol in order to satisfy the recent push for a fuel alternative.

Demands for ethanol programs now account for 1/2 of the world's unmet cereal needs, leaving countries who depend on American exports at a loss for those crucial grains. Additionally, the sky-rocketing value of corn means the inevitable increase in all other food prices, as it is a main ingredient in everything from meat (as feed) to soda pop. This means that, beyond the hungry population of the world, even the entitled individuals nestled deep in suburbia of developed countries will complain over the extra 6 cents it'll cost them for a Coke.

Can’t more corn be grown? If fact it can, and is. But this means detrimental effects for natural forests (including those most precious, in places like Brazil) as well as the sacrifice of other crops as farms are transitioned into growing maize. The fact of the matter is that the high prices are not an effect of shortages but rather of redirected demands. There isn’t enough corn to go around not because it's not grown but because we’re using it to fuel our ever-superfluous vehicles.

But to what extent does our “moral” change affect the world’s hunger?
According to the World Bank, the grain needed to fill an SUV would feed a person for a year.
One can hardly call that efficient.

Ethanol has more faults than exaggerating food shortages, however.
It is not nearly as clean as it’s marketed to be – in fact, ethanol generates mutagens, carcinogens and increase ozone levels. It is not a sustainable, clean alternative to oil; yet it is being presented as the viable future of fuel. By pursuing ethanol production, we are not only amplifying the existing issue of world hunger, but are also falling short of the clean-fuel promise. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t make an effort to change our habits, but an “alternative” that doesn't eliminate but merely shifts the negative impacts is not adequate change.

If we’re not willing to give up our cars, as seems evident, then we must reconsider the global impact and investigate sustainable, genuinely clean energies with which to fuel them. Clean resources exist – both solar energy and biological waste are used in places around the world. It’s the will to pursue them that’s absent.



Sources:
1. Business Week, "Food vs. Fuel", Feb. 5 2007.
2. The Economist, "Cheap no more", Dec. 6 2007.
3. Ho, Mae-Wan, PhD, "How to be Fuel and Food Rich Under Climate Change", Institute of Science in Society, Jun 2006.
4. Brown, L. Plan B 2.0 Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.