Tuesday, December 16, 2008




American roads, hungry for corn in the form of the motor fuel ethanol, never figured in the livelihoods of earlier generations of Rock County growers. In the 1930s, some considered it a sin to burn corn in home furnaces.

“They felt it was a food, and there’s always hungry people in the world,” said Andy Steensma, the mayor of Luverne, the county seat.

Today, burning crops like corn, soybeans and sugar cane for fuel is policy in the U.S., Brazil and the European Union -- while almost 1 billion of the world’s 6.8 billion people are hungry, the most in a generation. About 95 percent of what Vis grows feeds vehicles in the western U.S. -- the destination for ethanol produced in his local plant -- not people or animals.

“It does not make sense to put our food into the gas tank,” said Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University economist who advises the United Nations on reducing hunger. “It’s not a healthy link, that’s for sure.”

President George W. Bush mandated using ethanol distilled from corn to stretch gasoline supplies in 2005, and President- elect Barack Obama has said he supports the policy.

... deja vu ...
... they think they are louis XV ...
... building the last gardens of versailles ...
... while people were looking for bread ...


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# posted by intcoex : 12:13 PM




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