Topic: Food Crunch and Ethanol
This is an interesting thought as we never think that we will ever be short of food grains. But we are in an interesting situation where Detroit life saver Ethanol is stealing your bread. Today, pressure on detroit to develop alternative clean energy has Auto industry hawks eyeing your food plate. The competition for Corn and Wheat is more than ever. Lets see who needs wheat and Corn -
1. Variety of foods - Breads, Flour etc. for humans
2. Beer (For some, it should be number 1) and some other Alcohols
3. Livestock is fed on these grains and is used further up in the foodchain by humans
4. Detroit Automakers who would like to divert wheat and corn production to Ethanol production.
The prices of wheat and corn have been going up because of the lesser production of wheat and more demand for ethanol production which is further leading to increases in prices of livestock based food items as well. I am wondering if this is really green to derive the alternative fuels from human food supply. Ethanol is especially bad as it takes more energy to produce than it has.
I think it is time our policy makers should stop Detroit from going in the direction of Ethanol.
