Actualité - Ethanol Fuels International Debate

David Pimentel, a leading Cornell University agricultural expert, has proved Cuban president Fidel Castro right in his denounce of using food to make ethanol, as he calculated that to power all cars in the United States with ethanol would require the whole territory of the US to be planted with corn.

The Economist of the UK and The New York Times have also warned like the Cuban president that converting food into fuel and planning on using ethanol instead of gasoline in a wasteful lifestyle will be equal to genocide, as it will demand increasing extensions of corn and other foods in detriment of land to feed people and livestock.

On the other hand, subsidized corn results in higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States.

Increasing ethanol production would further inflate corn prices, Pimentel says, noting: "In addition to paying tax dollars for ethanol subsidies, consumers would be paying significantly higher food prices in the marketplace".

As soon as corn-based ethanol began to gain momentum, so did the international prices of corn and other cereals, of which over a hundred poor nations are net importers. Dairy economists in the US said higher demand for ethanol has spiked corn prices up to nearly $4 a bushel.

Only in the US consumers had to pay last week a lot more for their eggs due to the surge in demand for corn to make ethanol, says The Ithaca Journal. A dozen large eggs run on average for $1.51, about 43 cents higher than a year ago, the second-biggest price since the American Farm Bureau Federation began collecting data in 1989.

Rising corn and soybean prices have led to increased costs for feed. Prices were up 119 percent in February, versus the same period a year ago, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

The same source informed that the area planted with corn this year is the largest since 1944, but the demand of grain to produce ethanol is equally bigger, so that will not translate into lower prices for corn destined to human or animal feed.

Fortunately there are other more rational forces in the quest for an alternative fuel.

More than 200 people gathered April 4 at South Dakota State University for the two-hour field hearing of the Senate Agriculture Committee's energy subcommittee.

Much of the prepared testimony at Wednesday's hearing focused on the possibility of the industry's transition from corn-based to cellulosic ethanol.

Making ethanol from cellulose or biomass sources such as switchgrass and wheat straw isn't yet profitable, and such efforts need governmental help to develop, he said. Another expert doubted that corn-based ethanol would eventually deliver the grandiose promise of biofuel in quantities big enough to meet demand.

Ray Wallace, retired from publishing, investment-banking research, and landmarks preservation, says in an article posted April 6, it's more than animals, plants, the food chain, news, truth, and citizens that our country abuses nonstop.

"It's also our land, water, and the very air we breathe. Not to mention the fact that ethanol is perhaps the most expensive and energy-wasting fuel ever envisioned."

"We're more than our own worst enemies. We're marketing to the entire world - and imposing our costly, suicidal savagery on it as well," concludes Wallace.

(Prensa Latina News Agency)