[Peace-discuss] biofuels craze stimulates worldwide food shortages and ill will.

[E. Wayne Johnson]

In 1995, a late spring (like this one in 2008), followed by a moderate 
drought (like the one projected for 2008), led to a depletion of grain 
stocks and skyrocketing grain prices.  Presently the biofuels craze, 
which is driven by US government policy, tax cuts and investment 
opportunities rather than by real productivity and free market forces, 
is driving up grain prices way past what the short crop of 1995.  Grain 
competes with oil and the production cost of food increases and food 
prices worldwide go up and up.  And not only worldwide but in the USA 
too, even :) .   Nothing destablizes a government and international 
relations like a food crisis.  Many articles on this today.  Not all of 
them emphasize the biofuels craze as one root cause of the quasi-famine, 
but this one from the Wall Street Journal comes pretty close.  Makes me 
wonder how long this will have to go and how serious the problem will 
have to get before there is some awakening to push personal 
transportation under the bus, so to speak.  I am concerned that it will 
get a lot worse than we might hope before Americans become anything like 
seriously interested in public transportation and sensible city planning 
oriented around transportation and accessibility, rather than just 
crying to Mama for cheaper fuel.  Meanwhile, nothing makes folk unhappy 
like an empty belly and starving children (...and nigh unmentionable worse).

    Food Inflation, Riots Spark Worries for World Leaders IMF, World
    Bank Push for Solutions; Turmoil in Haiti
    By BOB DAVIS and DOUGLAS BELKIN
    April 14, 2008; Page A1

    WASHINGTON -- Finance ministers gathered this weekend to grapple
    with the global financial crisis also struggled with a problem that
    has plagued the world periodically since before the time of the
    Pharaohs: food shortages.

    Surging commodity prices have pushed up global food prices 83% in
    the past three years, according to the World Bank -- putting huge
    stress on some of the world's poorest nations. Even as the ministers
    met, Haiti's Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis was resigning
    after a week in which that tiny country's capital was racked by
    rioting over higher prices for staples like rice and beans.
    As food prices soar, protests are breaking out around the world,
    including this riot Saturday in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

    Rioting in response to soaring food prices recently has broken out
    in Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Ethiopia. In Pakistan
    and Thailand, army troops have been deployed to deter food theft
    from fields and warehouses. World Bank President Robert Zoellick
    warned in a recent speech that 33 countries are at risk of social
    upheaval because of rising food prices. Those could include
    Indonesia, Yemen, Ghana, Uzbekistan and the Philippines. In
    countries where buying food requires half to three-quarters of a
    poor person's income, "there is no margin for survival," he said.

    Many policy makers at the weekend meetings of the International
    Monetary Fund and World Bank agreed that the problem is severe.
    Among other targets, they singled out U.S. policies pushing
    corn-based ethanol and other biofuels as deepening the woes.

    "When millions of people are going hungry, it's a crime against
    humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels," said India's
    finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, in an interview. Turkey's
    finance minister, Mehmet Simsek, said the use of food for biofuels
    is "appalling."...

    <- - read more -->
    <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120813134819111573.html>

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