Comments on: Bio-Fuel Causes Egyptian Starvation

By: Global Voices Online » Arabeyes: Looming Food Crisis

Global Voices Online » Arabeyes: Looming Food Crisis — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:53:58 +0000

[...] in Egypt, D B Shobrawy paints another picture – blaming rising gas prices and the greed of the Arab oil barons for the [...]

By: Chaya

Chaya — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:15:14 +0000

The ‘Greenies’ want to be able to pat themselves on the back about how ‘green’ they are – to hell with the fact that the price of basic food products is going up!

By: eric

eric — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:13:13 +0000

There is a difference between farmers in the West and agri business. For decades now, smaller farms have been steadily disappearing in North America. The cost of machinery and transport pretty much guarantees that, unless a farmer moves into more specialized produce or gets income outside the farm, farms have to be a certain size to operate at a profit. This is especially true for grain farming. In the northwest States and Saskatchewan, the population has been shrinking as the size of farms increases. These massive agri-corporations work with their governments to fix prices and productivity, at first to survive (a country importing most of it’s foodstuffs is rather vulnerable) but now, with gas expensive enough that ethanol has become profitable, there is a spike in prices because it will take years before all the land that was allowed to go off grain production will be re-introduced.
There is farmable land throughout Canada and the US that is being minimally used because generations of farmers have become used to the concept that their skills (in driving, construction, outdoor hard work) will often make three times their hourly wage in the job market than on their family farms.
These farms will start producing again due to these prices, and in a few years you will probably see a glut in the global food market, but the hard truth is that such a thing is years away, and doesn’t account for environmental or man-made crises.
So, you are basically right, D.B. If not for the price of oil reaching a certain point, ethanol and bio-diesel would not be profitable and the grains market would still be cheap and plentiful.
I still support this industry by filling up on ethanol wherever I can, because it does support farmers in a kind of twisted way. Sorry about that.

By: Kawthar (Sudan)

Kawthar (Sudan) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:24:27 +0000

There has been an increasing amount of criticism directed towards bio-fuels in recent months. However, there are many promising technologies, that can produce biofuels without harming world food supplied.In any case, biofuels, emission caps, using sheep as lawn mowers - I don't see them as sufficient to combat climate change. Population reduction is the way to go.