A lot of people are wondering what the hell is going on with food prices.
Rice, dollars per ton
Source: Reuters
The price of bulk rice on global markets has tripled since the start of the year, school children in some of the world's poorest nations are losing access to school-lunch programs, and people in places like Haiti are literally scrounging through garbage dumps in search of something to eat.
Here in the U.S., heightened prices are putting a hard pinch on low- and middle-income families, restaurant chains are seeing their profits plunge as food costs rise and consumers seek cheaper options, and Big Box chains Costco and Sam's are limiting customer bulk rice purchases.
Below I'll look at some of the factors contributing to the run-up. This isn't a comprehensive listing, just my own ongoing attempt to understand what's going on. If I "missed a spot," I'm sure you'll let me know.
- Biofuel. Few serious people deny that U.S. and European biofuel mandates, ramped up dramatically over the past year, are contributing to the surge in food prices. The International Grain Council reports that grain (mainly corn) diverted to biofuel jumped 44 percent between 2006 and 2007. This surge in demand affects more than the price of corn. When farmers scramble to plant corn to cash in on the ethanol boom, they plant less of other stuff like soy and even wheat, putting upward pressure on their prices. Massive U.S. plantings of corn have also contributed to sharp spikes in fertilizer and GMO seed prices as well as corn-belt land rents, dramatically raising the cost of farming.
The International Food Policy Research Institute reckons that the biofuel boom accounts for between a quarter and a third of the run-up in prices over the last three years. - Drought and other weird weather, possibly related to climate change. Southern Australia, a major ag-producing region, has been been in a brutal drought for six years, which may or may not be related to climate change. Either way, the drought eviscerated Australia's wheat crop last year, contributing to a surge in wheat prices.
The New York Times reported recently that Australia's drought has essentially wiped out the nation's rice production.The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people around the world. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia's rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.
Also, floods and pest outbreaks have damaged rice production in southeast Asia. - The complete lack of government grain stores. Traditionally, nations kept stores of imperishable foodstuffs -- in case, you know, bad weather knocks out a harvest. These could be tapped to lower prices in times of crisis and used as food aid to avert hunger scares. But according to neoliberal economic dogma, government grain stores distort markets -- and so government grain stores have been phased out.
This is true of tiny, vulnerable countries like Haiti and huge, powerful ones like the United States. Check out this USDA document [PDF] called "World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimates," from April 11, 2008. It gives production and consumption numbers for the last couple of years for several major crops.
Scroll down to the chart on corn on page 12. The "ending stocks" number is essentially the store being kept by the market: production minus consumption for a given growing year. For 2005-2006, ending stocks were 1.9 billion bushels. For 2007-2008, the USDA projects ending stocks of just 1.2 billion bushels, a 36 percent drop. That's despite a 12 percent jump in acres planted in corn.
Now look at the line called "CCC," a reference to the Commodity Credit Corporation, the government agency started in 1933 to "stabilize, support, and protect farm income and prices [and] maintain balanced and adequate supplies of agricultural commodities and aids in their orderly distribution." The CCC represents our national store of corn in case of emergency, a mechanism for taking the edge off of price jumps.
The CCC line contains big fat zeros. The survivalists, for all their insanity, have a point: Nations, including the U.S., aren't storing food for a rainy (or drought-stricken) day. - Other neoliberal policies. In the 1940s, Haiti produced 80 percent of its own food and exported coffee, sugar, meat, and chocolate. Today, it produces far less than half of its own food. Its per-capita food production [PDF] has plunged by a third since 1980. What happened? Corrupt governments, cheered on by the IMF and World Bank, ripped open agriculture markets to low-cost foreign competition and slashed agriculture spending. This led to a flood of cheap imports and a mass exodus from the land. Rather than find good jobs in cities, Haiti's displaced farmers got a place in the "informal economy" -- e.g., selling gum to other shantytown denizens.
Now that food comes not mainly from the land but rather from the magic of the market -- unmitigated by grain stores -- hunger reigns when food prices jump. The market is an unsentimental food distributor. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported ($ub. req'd):"Haiti has enough food in the marketplace to feed its populace, but prices have increased beyond the means of many of the urban poor to pay for it," said Michael Hess, an administrator in the U.S. Agency for International Development's Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance.
Haiti exemplifies, in an extreme way, agriculture management throughout the global south. - Growing demand for meat and dairy in Asia. IFPRI numbers [PDF] show that Chinese meat consumption more than doubled between 1990 and 2005, and its milk consumption tripled. (For India, those metrics rose by a fifth.) This long-term trend exerts steady upward pressure on grain prices but likely aren't responsible for spikes in the last couple of years.
- Rocketing energy prices. Sharply dearer petroleum and natural gas clearly contributes to the food-price hikes. Natural gas is the feedstock for synthetic nitrogen fertilizer -- lifeblood of industrial agriculture -- which has seen its use and price jump. Then there are the energy costs involved with processing and hauling food around the globe.
- Speculation. We know that big investment groups like hedge funds have engaged in what the Wall Street Journal has called "unprecedented levels of financial speculation in grain-futures markets." Fleeing the real estate and derivatives markets, these funds are desperately seeking yield in an era of low interest rates.
"When you get a huge influx of speculative money, as happened in December and January, the price inflates beyond what the fundamentals would dictate and creates a sort of balloon," a National Association of Wheat Growers official told the Journal.
A reading of Mike Davis' chilling Late Victorian Holocausts, on 19th century famines in British-controlled India, shows that times of hunger and panic have long meant fat profits for grain speculators. - Just-in-time inventory management at Big Box stores. To minimize costs, mega-retailers try to precisely match inventory with demand. When a surprise run happens, they can be caught short. This may have had something to do with that much-ballyhooed rice rationing at Costco and Sam's Club.
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Comments
View as Flat
Erik Hoffner Posted 5:13 am
25 Apr 2008
He also talks about how the low price of wheat last year spurred problems, in part b/c of its coincidence with the AU drought.
Availabe mp3 here:
http://foodchainradio.com/shows/585Bcheap.mp3
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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disdaniel Posted 6:14 am
25 Apr 2008
I'm sorry but "possibly related to climate change" and "may or may not be related to climate change" adds nothing to the point. You could just as easily, and correctly say "drought possibly related to alien invasion" or "may or may not be related to black holes".
And yes I believe 100% in climate change. If there is evidence of a strong (or weak) link say so. I wouldn't mind if you point out: Drought and other weird weather which climate models predict should become more widespread due to global warming. But what you did say is frankly pointless.
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Bart Anderson Posted 6:48 am
25 Apr 2008
It hasn't gotten much publicity outside of the agriculture press, but the prices of all fertilizers have gone way up (not just N).
Another reason to learn about composting.
Some recent articles:
Fertilizers and glyphosate
Potash and sulphur
China agrees to pay triple for potash fertilizer
Role of Potash as strategic resource
Phosphorus
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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kmp Posted 7:36 am
25 Apr 2008
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rmcleod Posted 7:36 am
25 Apr 2008
--
entropyproduction.blogspot.com
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:54 pm
25 Apr 2008
"If there was a secret vote, there is a pretty large number of people who would like to reassess what we are doing," he said.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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kmp Posted 12:48 am
26 Apr 2008
"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)
Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.
Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.
And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.
The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food.
A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That's soaking up some of the corn supply.
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greenfire8 Posted 8:00 pm
26 Apr 2008
i have yet to see you mention our porkbarrel politics and ag subsidies? you are doing your credibility serious harm my friend....
you mentioned that Haiti used to produce most of its own food and then went on to say the recent turn for them is because "Corrupt governments, cheered on by the IMF and World Bank, ripped open agriculture markets to low-cost foreign competition"....to clarify for those that may not realize: we are that "corrupt government" and the billions of our tax dollars that subsidize a small percentage of the ag elite in this country are the the "low-cost foreign competition"....
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/24/the_us_role_in_hait ...
A billion dollars a year of taxpayer money goes to rice farmers in the United States, plus we have a tariff. We have three different subsidies, three different programs that do that, plus we have a tariff that adds between three and 24 percent protection for our rice farmers. And as a result, the rich and powerful country of the United States, along with other rich and powerful countries in the world, have just really bullied these small countries into accepting our rice. And as the rice from the United States came in--they even called it "Miami rice" and some call it the invasion of Miami rice--that the rice flooded in at low or below cost--free or below cost and destroyed the ability of farmers in Haiti to be able to grow rice.
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:25 am
27 Apr 2008
I take it you are a biofuel proponent and favor the subsidies that support it?
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Jonas Posted 4:01 am
27 Apr 2008
It says this:
UN says oil rise hits food prices harder
By Javier Blas in London
Published: April 26 2008 03:00 | Last updated: April 26 2008 03:00
Biofuels are viewed by many as the main culprit in the food crisis, but agriculture experts say that other factors, ranging from higher demand in China to a slowdown in farming productivity growth, have greater influence on prices.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates biofuels have contributed to about 10 per cent of the current price rise. It argues that the surge of oil prices - through costlier fertilizer and diesel - is having a greater impact on food prices.
Jeff Tschirley, the chairman of the Inter-Departmental Working Group on Bioenergy at FAO in Rome, said: "Biofuel has been made a culprit, but we don't see it as the major [factor] responsible for high food prices."
Other organisations, such as the International Monetary Fund and International Food Policy Research Institute, the Washington-based think-tank, have estimated biofuel's contribution to current higher food prices at 20-30 per cent.
The FAO considers that biofuels "offer opportunities and risks" as they can contribute to rural income, but can also help to drive food prices higher.
Some policymakers are worried that the narrow focus on biofuels - sometimes together with so-called speculation in agriculture derivatives markets - could lead to the overlooking of long-term problems, such as low investment in agriculture, the impact of climate change or how to feed a growing global population.
Corn and soyabean are among the crops whose prices appear potentially most sensitive to demand for biofuels.
George W. Bush, the US president, recently said: "If you look what is happening in corn, you're beginning to see the food issue and the energy issue collide."
Joseph Glauber, chief economist at the US Department of Agriculture, said there was no question that biofuels "have a strong impact on corn".
The acknowledgement of the ethanol industry's impact on corn prices could lead to lower government support to the US biofuel industry, such as cutting the current tax credit of 51 cents a gallon, but it is unlikely to trigger a full-scale U-turn.
There is already discussion among US policymakers of lowering the tax credit to 45 cents.
However, Mr Glauber cautioned about pointing to the biofuel industry as the drivers of the price of wheat, rice or vegetables, which he said was boosted by other factors.
Analysts point out, for example, that the price of lentils - a staple in India - has jumped in a year to $800 (€511, £403) a tonne from $300 a tonne even though the commodity is not used for biofuels production and neither is it competing for land with biofuel crops.
Rising demand, bad harvests because of extreme weather and export restrictions had boosted the price, said analysts.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4493ad46-1329-11dd-8d91-0000779 ...
But then, Gristmill has never had a realistic assessment of this matter.
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Jonas Posted 4:02 am
27 Apr 2008
Just a matter of taking things seriously and not contributing to ruining one of the few development opportunities for our 3 billion poor farmers.
Thank you.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:07 am
27 Apr 2008
How dare they not link to an article posted April 26th!!1
Gristmill writers can transcend time can't they?
http://emmettbrown.ytmnd.com
____
Then again maybe they should be cite FAO reports on the subject?
"Over the outlook period, substantial amounts of maize in the US, wheat and rapeseed in the EU and sugar in Brazil will be used for ethanol and bio-diesel production. This is underpinning crop prices and, indirectly through higher feed costs, the prices for livestock products as well," writes the report.
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=77946-oec ...
_____
Another fun mechanism to consider.
That since the value of biofuels is tied to the functional value of it's use as a transport fuel.
Then the value/cost of farm commodities goes up proportionately to the rise in value of transportation fuel.
Due in no part to the direct cost inputs of transport fuel to the food production process itself.
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Jonas Posted 5:23 am
27 Apr 2008
The IEA adds: 50% of all new liquid fuels produced already come from biofuels, which are "vital" to secure world energy supplies, because OPEC can't put out more. Biofuels have thus had a huge deflationary effect; without biofuels, the current global economic crisis and the inflation would have been far worse.
I take the FAO and the IEA serious. You don't.
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greenfire8 Posted 5:38 am
27 Apr 2008
Am I a proponent of ethanol and its subsidies? In its current form, NO. I will not however sit idly by while it's causes/effects are dangled as a distraction from deeper, further-reaching issues....our bureaucrats' and their corporate handlers' notion of globalization and "free trade" through billions of dollars in crop subsidies. I saw "neoliberal policies" blamed by Tom. As I recall, it was the pseudo-con's who got downright rabid about all the provisions for sustainable alternatives and R&D that liberals wanted in the Energy Bill. They dangled ethanol out there and said you better at least take this or we'll pull it out too and you'll get nothing......
On a side, I have lived in places that were once among the worst cities for air quality in the nation until an ethanol requirement was instated. You dont even want me to get into current policy effets on the Conservation Reserve Program and increasing petrochemical inputs on sensitive, marginal lands.
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:16 am
27 Apr 2008
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol2
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol3
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/E85PaperEST02 ...
_
What you're probably attributing to isn't ethanol, but instead catalytic converters, a program to remove older cars off the road, and taking the amount of sulfur in diesel down from 5000ppm to 15ppm.
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Colin Wright Posted 7:25 am
27 Apr 2008
Yet Nichols downplays the food-fuel competition, thereby letting our gas-guzzling habits off the hook. Biofuels and speculation does seem to me the critical drivers that pushed the system over a tipping point. Here's how Eva Morales puts it:And it's not possible to understand in this new millennium how there are governments, presidents, institutions that are more interested in a heap of metal than in life. They're more interested in fueling luxury cars than in feeding human beings. That's where we raise a question. First, land is to be for life and not land for scrap metal or a heap of metal.
I do think "delinking" food and oil is important. (As GreyFln indicates, food prices will continue to escalate as long as land is in competition for biofuels, which are linked in to the oil markets.) And I do think we need to fight for a new locally-based sustainable agricultural policy. But I think it's equally important to view matters through a global "ecological" framework. That is, we are reaching the limits of the natural world, in terms of population and resource use. Peak oil will soon be followed by peak natural gas and peak coal. We will need new ways of thinking, not just about the economics of food production but of all our resource use. Otherwise, we will continue to come up with inadequate "solutions" like biofuels that impact other aspects of our energy use.
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GreyFlcn Posted 8:20 am
27 Apr 2008
"Increased yields will make things better".
Well wait a minute. Will increased yields be optimized towards higher outputs, or lower inputs.
Chances are because higher outputs are more profitable, and biofuels production is trying to expand, it will lead to a policy of higher outputs.
This of course runs smack into Jevon's Paradox.
Where it will actually lead to increased consumption/scarcity of water, topsoil, phosphorous, potash, and ammonia.
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Biodiversivist Posted 8:39 am
27 Apr 2008
The FAO says: 10%, Greyfalcon. That is marginal. Finally we hear that you have been blogging nonsense for a long time.
The IEA adds: 50% of all new liquid fuels produced already come from biofuels, which are "vital" to secure world energy supplies, because OPEC can't put out more. Biofuels have thus had a huge deflationary effect; without biofuels, the current global economic crisis and the inflation would have been far worse.
I take the FAO and the IEA serious. You don't.
...you also took:
"Professor Dr Ir Rudy Rabbinge (needs no intro, does he? If he does: he's chair of the Science Council of the CGIAR, board member of AGRA - Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa -, co-chair of the InterAcademy Council, etc... also probably the next FAO boss, and dean of Wageningen, the world's leading agronomic university; been Chairman of the United Nations Panel on Food Security and Agricultural Productivity, etc... how's that for an authority argument),..."
pretty seriously until you learned of his views on biofuels.
The actual FAO quote says that they "estimate" 10%, but without a link to their study (assuming they have one already), and until we get some peer reviewed studies, we won't be able to untangle how much. There will never be a definitive and precise answer. And when you are talking about a 10% increase in food in a few short years, it is anything but marginal for the poorest.
The IEA never said "...Biofuels have thus had a huge deflationary effect; without biofuels, the current global economic crisis and the inflation would have been far worse."
You are exaggerating what was actually said, but this time you also blended it in with actual quotes from the IEA.
"50% of all new liquid fuels" sounds like a lot but it translates into roughly 1% of total global supply. Biofuels are predicted to be only 2% of total supply by 2012. They are doing an awful lot of damage for only being 2% of our supply.
And, what is this cryptic reference to greyflcn?
"Finally we hear that you have been blogging nonsense for a long time."
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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GonzoDon Posted 9:38 am
27 Apr 2008
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TokyoTom Posted 6:43 pm
27 Apr 2008
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Jonas Posted 9:36 pm
27 Apr 2008
Agricultural experts say the planet has a carrying capacity for the production of food for 40 billion people.
Feeding 40 billion people and the Green Revolution in Africa.
Energy experts for their part have shown that, by 2050, we can both feed the increased population and produce 1500 EJ of bioenergy (that is almost 4 times as much energy as is consumed today from all sources: coal, oil, gas, nuclear), in an explicit no deforestation scenario.
See the IEA Bioenergy Task 40, and the Copernicus Institute's model on global bioenergy potential. It is the most authoritative study to date, which is why it is being used by the FAO in its new bioenergy assessment model.
IEA Bioenergy Task 40: Quickscan of global bioenergy potentials by 2050 - the most authoritative analysis so far (but it doesn't take into account progress in biotech - so the potential can actually be higher.)
See also (from the authors of the Copernicus Institute):
Edward M.W. Smeets, André P.C. Faaij, Iris M. Lewandowski and Wim C. Turkenburg (2006) A bottom-up assessment and review of global bio-energy potentials to 2050. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Volume 33, Issue 1, February 2007, Pages 56-106.
So land is not the problem, carrying capacity is not the problem.
The real problem is politics, trade, distribution.
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JoshS Posted 11:29 pm
27 Apr 2008
once you begin treating the soil as a resource to be extracted, the clock measuring its useful life has started to tick.
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GonzoDon Posted 2:56 am
28 Apr 2008
Does this include the massive tracts of tropical rainforests currently being converted to pasture (for cattle) and soybeans (to feed beef cattle)?
Does this include the massive spread of desertification in areas of marginal agricultural productivity worldwide?
Does this include the water consumption, soil erosion, lost conservation reserves, plowed-up native prairie in North America now going for corn production (to create bio-fuels, to feed confined animals)?
Does this mean I don't need to worry about the fact that in every country I've visited or lived in on our small planet (around 25, at last count), I have observed unsustainable environmental degradation of some sort (decimated wild habitat, massive soil erosion, contaminated water supplies, etc)?
Call me crazy, but methinks overpopulation has something to do with it.
Granted, there are a lot of factors -- political, climatological, etc -- leading to the current high food prices in the short term. But in the long term, it sure looks to me like we're headed for a train wreck. Cure those other factors, and you've still got a growing population with growing lust for consumption -- all of which requires land, water, fertilizers, and energy.
Especially energy. Most of our ag production today in the developed world is basically an exercise of converting fossil fuels into calories. Once those fossil fuels become four, eight, sixteen times as expensive as they are today, where does that leave us?
You may be ready to live on a planet with 40 billion of your closest friends, but for me to imagine all of the above problems being roughly 6 times worse doesn't give me much cheer.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:59 am
28 Apr 2008
We are currently producting food for 12 billion people and a lot of biofuel.
In theory, sure. But you would have to convince everyone to stop eating meat, dairy and eggs and eat grain directly. The exact opposite is happening. Maybe you should be lobbying for veganism. The reality is that less than 2% or our liquid fuel is biofuel and look at the havoc being wrought already. If it can be grown in way that won't destroy carbon sinks, ecosystems and increase global warming, great, but we are not doing it that way.
Agricultural experts say the planet has a carrying capacity for the production of food for 40 billion people
That's a theoretical hypothesis. That agricultural expert also said:
...current biofuel crops are not efficient energy producers and require vast surfaces of arable land that will not be available for other purposes, such as food producti
"Fuel for the rich or food for the poor?" was how Rudy Rabbinge, professor of sustainable development at Wageningen University, put this dilemma at a debate on biomass from developing countries in The Hague in March 2007. Rabbinge believes that biofuel and food are incompatible. In his opinion, only unused plant remains should be used to generate energy, provided that it meets the sustainability criteria set out by the Cramer Commission, chaired by Professor Jacqueline Cramer of the University of Utrecht, now the Dutch environment minister. In other words, biofuel production must not involve the loss of agricultural land, and it must not threaten food production, biodiversity, or the welfare of workers. Above all, it must have a positive impact on CO2 emissions, according to a life-cycle analysis.
Energy experts for their part have shown that, by 2050, we can both feed the increased population and produce 1500 EJ of bioenergy (that is almost 4 times as much energy as is consumed today from all sources: coal, oil, gas, nuclear), in an explicit no deforestation scenario.
Those papers are thought ("what if") exercises. They are only calculating theoretical potentials, all based on assumptions with unknown probabilities. Predicting the future is tough to do. The effects of things like global warming on crop production are anything but clear-cut. The word "potential" is used 15 times on that page. The second abstract uses the terms "in theory" and "theoretical" twice each.
The first abstract for example, assumes agricultural efficiency will increase enough to release 72% of existing arable land now being used for food to bioenergy instead. Sometimes scientist can display an amazing lack of common sense:
Results indicated that the application of very efficient agricultural systems combined with the geographic optimization of land use patterns could reduce the area of land needed to cover the global food demand in 2050 by as much as 72 % of the present area
Existing scenario studies indicated that such increases in productivity may be unrealistically high, although these studies generally excluded the impact of large scale bioenergy crop production.
Note they say"large-scale" bioenergy. This conflicts with your concept of small landholders growing crops for liquid biofuels for our cars. Much of the energy they speak of is coming from forests, which could be as simple as burning wood in place of coal to generate electricity, which would compete for the biomass for liquid fuels.
So land is not the problem, carrying capacity is not the problem.
If there is no land problem, why are they converting wetlands and nature preserves in Africa and Indonesia, and rainforests and savannas in South America into cropland and pasture?
The real problem is politics, trade, distribution
Yes, those are the "real" problems. They are "real," not theoretical potentials and they are not going away. All countries attempt to protect their own people with those things. They can't be eliminated because they are the result of human nature. We are locked into a combination of intragroup and intergroup cooperation and competition by our genes. India and China are competing and winning thanks to good governance.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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greenfire8 Posted 2:40 pm
28 Apr 2008
the only way corn ethanol emits more GHG's is when it involves deforestation or grassland destruction or when it's made w/ energy from coal w/ no carbon capture....
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amazingdrx Posted 2:54 pm
28 Apr 2008
That is a huge part of this GHG disaster. Millenia of stored carbon released over a 150 years.
Prairie soil stores 1.8 tons per year per acre. Multiplied over thousands of years, with millions of acres that amounted to a lot of CO2.
8-ball's idea that ethanol makes it's own carbon cycle rendering it carbon neutral is a complete fallacy. Very common, but exposed by the studies greyflcn noted.
By taking away the carbon sink activity of the soil, ethanol leaves double the CO2 from guzzling gas. it's all in the real balance.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 2:57 pm
28 Apr 2008
There is no CCS. Are you going to parrot every single mainstream greenwashing fantasy talking point? hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Anastasia Posted 11:10 am
29 Apr 2008
Saying that overall rising food prices are causing the shortages doesn't make sense either, considering that there wouldn't be enough rice regardless due to the weather and bad govt practices in the countries that are having shortages. Whether or not the current generation of seed based biofuels is a good idea is another subject entirely.
I'm just so tired of seeing bloggers and supposed journalists pouncing on the same idea again and again without thinking or researching before writing.
This list is in serious need of reordering, as some other commenters have noted. Absent from the list is all of the grain that goes to animal feed, in the US and across the planet.
For more scientific discussion on GMOs, visit my blog: GeneticMaize.
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Pangolin Posted 1:16 pm
29 Apr 2008
This is only partially true. Rice, corn and soy can all be grown on delta soils like those found in some areas of California, Louisiana and Mississippi. Corn and soy can be grown on sloped land that is impractical for rice and rice is grown locally over hardpans that would kill corn or soy. There is enough overlap that increased corn prices can crowd out some rice crops if the price was right. All three crops compete for the same fertilizer sources so increased use by one crop increases the price for all three.
Also increased prices for corn and corn fed meat will push mouths that were eating meat, corn or soybeans directly into the rice market raising prices. Corn porridge or tortillas is often the last refuge of the hungry in much of the world.
Saying that overall rising food prices are causing the shortages doesn't make sense either, considering that there wouldn't be enough rice regardless due to the weather and bad govt practices in the countries that are having shortages. Whether or not the current generation of seed based biofuels is a good idea is another subject entirely.
Overall rising food prices are partially due to the costs of inputs to the farmer. As fertilizers, pesticides and tractor fuel are all fossil fuel products the rise in oil and natural gas prices pushes up the costs of the farmer. Farmers who cannot meet these costs must attempt to produce with reduced use of these inputs, reducing yield. Switching to organic, animal powered agriculture, is impractical for most in the short term.
I'm just so tired of seeing bloggers and supposed journalists pouncing on the same idea again and again without thinking or researching before writing.
This list is in serious need of reordering, as some other commenters have noted. Absent from the list is all of the grain that goes to animal feed, in the US and across the planet.
For more scientific discussion on GMOs, visit my blog: GeneticMaize.
Biofuels are clearly a working factor in the escalation in food prices. So is increased meat consumption, weather cycles and crop failure. GMO's reduced yields aren't helping one bit either. One stick doesn't make the house.
p.s.-your blog link doesn't work :P
Put the Carbon Back
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greenfire8 Posted 2:24 pm
29 Apr 2008
I like most of what you're saying. Just want to add that when I used to manage a low-input organic farm, I usually went by the title of "tractor jockey." Organic Standards stance on actively aerated compost tea; imo that's what is impractical.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:02 pm
29 Apr 2008
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Pangolin Posted 4:53 pm
29 Apr 2008
The biochar/biomethane biofuelies have demonstrated that small scale fuel production can be integrated with sustainable agriculture and agro-forestry. They are the first to tell you that the limits won't get you anything like current first world living standards but could power tractors and raise a few billion from miserable to comfortable. It will not fuel the happy motoring utopia. It will give you some cooking gas and backup hot water on cloudy days. Not insignificant when third world women die from lung cancer from cooking fires.
It's like the dark and light sides of the force.
Put the Carbon Back
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greenfire8 Posted 5:02 pm
29 Apr 2008
nowhere near as obnoxious as purists who think their own emissions smell better than everyone else's ;)
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amazingdrx Posted 8:15 pm
29 Apr 2008
Biogas running in solid oxide fuel cells and organic fertilizer from biodigestion. Wood gas can energize fuel cells too, then the waste heat can char the wood.
Soak the char in the organic fertilizer and you have the best soil ammendment in the world.
Maybe we can straighten some of this biofuelishness out with actual facts?
The beauty of biogas is that if you make it from manure and farm waste and wood chips and organic garbage, it cancels over 20 times the GHG (in the form of methane) that is emmited from the fuel cell.
So if a mere 5% of our energy came from biogas, it would cancel the rest of our GHG.
Use it to backup a renewable grid, and GHG climate disaster could be reversed.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 8:40 pm
29 Apr 2008
The key increase in demand is in grain for ethanol. That is all we are saying.
It triggered the rise in food prices that are causing riots. Are hedge funds more to blame? It's hard to tell because they take advantage of imaginary shortage. Human psychology rules markets in the end.
But the GHG disaster of corn ethanol is at the heart of the starvation disaster.
Every reason touted by ethanol proponents, namely GHG reduction, independence from fossil fuels, economic revival in the farm belt, lower cost energy; every one of these is false. They didn't pan out.
It turns out ethanol produces twice the GHG of gasoline. It doesn't reduce fuel costs. It makes us dependent on imported Russian ammonia, derived from natural gas. the farm belt still depends on subsidies to make any profit from corn. And the ethanol industry depends upon subsidies to make any profit at all.
Give up this biofuelishness.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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greenfire8 Posted 6:18 am
30 Apr 2008
Are you part parrot? You keep repeating the same bogus stats. I saw someone else call you on this habit of yours when I first joined. Apparently it's founded.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:55 am
30 Apr 2008
How many would be enough? Or are your claims completely delusional? Talking point after talking point from the ethanol lobby.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 11:56 am
30 Apr 2008
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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greenfire8 Posted 12:22 pm
30 Apr 2008
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