Unintended Consequences Watch: Food Crisis
Concurring Opinions:
Could a misguided response to global warming be the main reason for current global food shortages? That’s the apparent conclusion of an incendiary internal study at the World Bank recently leaked to the Guardian:
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian. . . . [P]roduction of biofuels has distorted food markets in three main ways. First, it has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards the production of biodiesel. Second, farmers have been encouraged to set land aside for biofuel production. Third, it has sparked financial speculation in grains, driving prices up higher.
If this report is true, it should be a sobering reminder for progressives that “raising consciousness” about a particular problem is useless in the context of “politics-as-usual.” Many voices warned about the consequences of food/fuel competition for grains, but were dismissed as Cassandras and neighsayers. Consider this view from Lester Brown in 2006:
Now, almost everything we eat can be converted into automotive fuel. And once the price of oil surpassed $60 a barrel last year, the business of transforming wheat, corn, soybeans and sugarcane into fuel for cars instead of food for people became hugely profitable. As crops that have long sustained us are diverted to provide fuel, we [are setting up] a battle between the world’s 800 million automobile owners, who want to maintain their mobility, and the world’s 2 billion poorest people, who simply want to survive.
$60 a barrel–would that were possible now! In any event, the food/fuel crisis is a stark indicator that go-along, get-along politics in Washington (and the…