Food or Fuel?

What is more important to you food or fuel? This raises the question of whether or not corn should be used to create ethanol as a biofuel or be used as a food source. The question at hand has created some major controversies among society. The side for the use of corn as food argues that we should feed the world before creating energy with the corn. On the flip side people argue that we should use ethanol because it decreases global warming and it lowers our dependency on petroleum fuels. You may wonder how this issue has come about in society.

People have known about ethanol as a fuel for a long time, but it hasn’t been used as an energy source until recent years. There are several reasons for this. First, with rising fuel prices at the pump people started looking into alternative energy sources that would be cheaper. One alternative was turning corn into ethanol which became quite popular in the United States. A second reason ethanol has grown in recent years is that it is a cleaner source of fuel which means it decreases global warming. Another reason corn has been used to create ethanol is an attempt to stimulate the economy. 40% of the annual corn crop in the US now goes toward ethanol production making it the number one use of corn produced. Ethanol would stimulate the economy because it would raise corn prices for farmers and create jobs in the ethanol plants. When this biofuel was reintroduced in recent years corn prices were low and there was a bountiful crop. During this time farmers were having a hard time surviving the rising fertilizer and fuel prices with such a low corn price.  

Now you may ask how this has become a problem? The crop of corn can be severely hurt by Mother Nature. For example this last year the majority of the Corn Belt was hit by a drought. This drought increased corn prices dramatically making it uneconomical even for ethanol production. Food prices have spiked three times in the past five years, because of high commodity prices. Cattle production is at its lowest since 1949/1950. Approximately 48 million people are on food stamps. The high corn price also hurts low-income developing countries where the poor spend nearly half of their income on food. All of these examples can in a way be related to the spike in corn prices.

So now what is the solution to this problem? There are many good arguments coming from both sides here. If ethanol production stops, corn and food prices both go down making it affordable for everyone. Then how is the farmer going to make it since the price of fuel has went up because no ethanol is being produced and their profit has gone down with the decreased corn prices. Next year may be a bumper crop and prices may come back down but we cannot predict that. This is a delicate system in which all decisions need to be weighed and considered before a decision is made.

I think that a balance needs to be made, so that the farmers do not get shorted and food prices come down. If I was going to take any side I would defend the farmer. My reasoning for this is that I believe the farmers have it the hardest, working long days and taking big risks. Like John F. Kennedy said, “The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways.”

http://theallegiant.com/corn-ethanol-food-corntroversy/

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/201210993632838545.html