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SUBSIDIES DRIVE US CORN ETHANOL BOOM DESPITE MAJOR DRAWBACKS
Mark Sommer
NOVEMBER 2007 (IPS) - The fuel source the United States has chosen to start replacing petroleum, corn-based ethanol, is expensive, inefficient, and both
environmentally and economically destructive, writes Mark Sommer,
who hosts the award-winning, internationally-syndicated radio
programme, ''A World of Possibilities''.
In recent years, giant agricultural commodity distributors like
Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland have successfully pressured both
the White House and Congress to extend lavish, long-standing corn
subsidies largely benefiting their corporate farming partners. But
corn-based ethanol turns out to be a bad bargain: it causes just 13
percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than petroleum, and a recent
OECD report found that ''the overall environmental impacts of
ethanol and biofuel can very easily exceed those of petrol and
mineral diesel''.
The pressure on corn supplies exerted by ethanol demand has
contributed to a 50 percent rise in the price of tortillas in
Mexico in the past year, sending this staple food beyond the reach
of the poor. China and India are starting to suffer from food price
inflation rippling out from rising corn and soybean prices.
Food is fundamentally a human right, not a mere commodity to be
traded like any other at the expense of those who can't afford it.
Not until we acknowledge this fact will we design both a fuel and
a food system driven more by human values than shareholder value.
/NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN AUSTRALIA, CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, POLAND, UNITED STATES OR UNITED KINGDOM/ (END/2007)
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