http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258050,00.html Will Demand for Ethanol Raise Food Prices? The Government Says Yes Friday, March 09, 2007 E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION WASHINGTON — Strong demand for corn from ethanol plants is driving up the cost of livestock and will raise prices for beef, pork and chicken, the Agriculture Department said Friday. Meat and poultry production will fall as producers face higher feed costs, the department said in its monthly crop report. Ethanol fuel, which is blended with gasoline, is consuming 20 percent of last year's corn crop and is expected to gobble up more than 25 percent of this year's crop. The price of corn, the main feed for livestock, has driven the cost of feeding chickens up 40 percent, according to the National Chicken Council. The council says that chicken, the most popular meat with consumers, will soon cost more at the grocery store. The industry worries the competition from ethanol could cause a shortage of corn. The average price of corn, unchanged from last month, is $3.20 a bushel, up from $2 last year. While chicken producer Tyson Foods Inc. (TSN) posted its first profitable quarter in a year Jan. 29, executives warned that a dramatic rise in feed costs will raise chicken prices. Now America's penchant for over-consumption of gasoline is going to cost us at the supermarket, on top of high gasoline prices. Way to go, America! Harry
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Earthling @ Mar 9 2007, 01:21 PM) [snapback]402896[/snapback]</div> absolutely, we can give away less food to the poor and hungry countries we feed and keep it home. this will increase the death rates around the world and hence overall decrease global warming - less people less global warming. and then more ethanol, less need for foreign oil - brilliant! Imagine if we stop ALL foreign food aid and assistance! who will feed the world? The real question is why do we feed the world. I think we should send food to people who can pay for it - that any food exported be priced at 200% over cost + reasonable profit - we should turn our great agricultural power into an economic powerhouse - i would allocate 50% of all $ derrived from sales of food overseas towards reducing the BUDGET DEFICIT - BRILLIANT! I think you are onto something here. What do you think of charging for our assistance in times of natural disasters - like tsunami relief - i mean it was costing us around $10-$20 million a day - why not charge our costs + 100% profit and use that money to insure the uninsured here - BRILLIANT!
Wow, I'm not sure if that was sarcasm or not. There is a kernal of foreshadowing/truth here. There will probably be a time when the US will have to leverage it's abundant food supply as a political tool, since it appears inevitable that countries will leverage their energy supply in the same way towards the US. Regarding rising food prices: Good. We (including myself) are very wasteful and spoiled with our food supply. As food costs go up, we will start to conserve more, throw out less, grow more of our own....Sound familiar to our oil use pattern?
Curiously enough, just 15 months ago, they were lamenting about how there was too much corn... New York Times Article (rehosted on some other site): Mountains of Corn and a Sea of Farm Subsidies <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("New York Times")</div>
And while we're at it. I found this article from 2 years ago curious... Rising Oil Prices Worry Food Makers <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("Reuters")</div>
