This is serious.
The United Nations’ World Food Program has been hit so hard by skyrocketing grain prices that it may be forced to cut off some food aid to the world’s poorest countries, while the United States is planning to turn record quantities of corn into automotive fuel.
Cereal grain import prices for the world’s poorest countries are expected to rise 35% for the second consecutive year in 2008, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Droughts and floods have reduced grain stocks, and demand is rising in part because better living standards in developing countries are bringing a change in diet — Indians and Chinese are eating more meat, so more grain is needed for livestock feed. And ethanol is making a bad situation worse. The U.S. is the world’s top corn exporter, and about a quarter of last year’s crop went to ethanol. Food prices, meanwhile, have increased so much that the World Food Program says it will have to raise $500 million more just to carry out its scheduled operations.
via LA Times, via reddit
Update: The NY Times is publishing about the same issue.
2 Responses
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I had never thought about how ethanol development affected aid to 3rd world countries. Add to that the fact that ethanol production is very inefficient in North America ( barely over 1:1 energy input/output ratio ).
Nowadays, being “green” is the coveted label. Perhaps we need a color for being “People Friendly.”
@Steven
Me neither. I’ve never expected it to have that direct negative effect on people’s lives.