Feed the people not our vehicles

STAFF EDITORIAL

Repeat after me: Flora is food, not fuel.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on May 14 that will require 35 billion gallons of biofuel per year to be made in the U.S. by 2022. This will nearly quadruple the estimated amount produced last year.

The majority of biofuel produced in the U.S. is ethanol, which is made from food crops like corn. It takes 26.1 pounds of corn to make one gallon of ethanol.

This news is alarming because it comes at a time when millions around the world are hungry due to a global rise in the price of food. There have been food riots taking place in countries like Haiti, Ethiopia and Sri Lanka, among others.

Reallocating resources that could be used as food toward the production of fuel for cars is a practice that needs rethinking.

The Bush administration, as well as presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, support ethanol and other biofuels and say they are necessary to wean America off foreign oil and become energy-independent.

The President and these two candidates are correct about one thing: America should strive to be energy-independent.

However, instead of subsidizing ethanol and funding ethanol research, the government could take more productive measures. A better policy would be to remove the ethanol subsidies and fund other alternative fuel sources for automobiles like solar power, electricity and hydrogen fuel cells.

The U.S. currently provides huge subsidies to ethanol producers, providing incentives for farmers to grow corn for fuel. The increasing use of biofuels diverts crops as well other valuable resources like land and water that could be used to grow food.

This practice is atrocious because countless people around the world are struggling to feed themselves and starving because of a spike in the prices of food.

There was a 60 percent rise in food prices worldwide over the last 18 months, as well as food related riots in more than 30 countries, according to the United Nations.

Biofuel isn’t the sole cause of the rising price of food; there are other factors that contribute.

The economic rise of countries like China and India has led these countries to import more food, resulting in a decreasein supply for the rest of the world.

The increasing price of oil has also impacted food production because fertilizers cost more and a lot of food production is mechanized and requires oil. Oil is also needed for transportation of foods. Natural disasters like floods and cyclones also get in the way of food production.

Still, experts say that the increasing use of biofuels is one of the major causes of the price increases. The International Monetary Fund said in April that the increasing shift of crops from food supply to produce biofuels accounts for about 50 percent of the recent increases in global food prices. The International Food Policy Research Institute estimates the figure at around 30 percent.

We cannot change some of the factors that lead to food price increases, but we can ask our government to stop its support of ethanol. There are other, more humane ways, to be energy-independent.

Jean Ziegler, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, called the growing use of crops to produce biofuels as a “crime against humanity.”

And he’s right.

Humans should not have to compete with cars for vital sustenance.

Remember: Flora is food, not fuel.