SUBSIDIES DRIVE US CORN ETHANOL BOOM DESPITE MAJOR DRAWBACKS

[rodeodance]

recall when Sen. Grassley from Iowa (corn) stood up and smiled from ear to ear when Bush announs\ced more money for corn at last years SOTU??


http://www.ipsnews.net/columns.asp?idnews=39940

SUBSIDIES DRIVE US CORN ETHANOL BOOM DESPITE MAJOR DRAWBACKS
Mark Sommer

NOVEMBER 2007 (IPS) - The fuel source the United States has chosen to start replacing petroleum, corn-based ethanol, is expensive, inefficient, and both environmentally and economically destructive, writes Mark Sommer, who hosts the award-winning, internationally-syndicated radio programme, ''A World of Possibilities''.

In recent years, giant agricultural commodity distributors like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland have successfully pressured both the White House and Congress to extend lavish, long-standing corn subsidies largely benefiting their corporate farming partners. But corn-based ethanol turns out to be a bad bargain: it causes just 13 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than petroleum, and a recent OECD report found that ''the overall environmental impacts of ethanol and biofuel can very easily exceed those of petrol and mineral diesel''.

The pressure on corn supplies exerted by ethanol demand has contributed to a 50 percent rise in the price of tortillas in Mexico in the past year, sending this staple food beyond the reach of the poor. China and India are starting to suffer from food price inflation rippling out from rising corn and soybean prices.

Food is fundamentally a human right, not a mere commodity to be traded like any other at the expense of those who can't afford it. Not until we acknowledge this fact will we design both a fuel and a food system driven more by human values than shareholder value.

[DCKit]

1. That the majority of recipients of the taxpayer's money will be Fortune 500 companies...

Should make every sane American scream "NO MORE."