We drive, they starve. The mass diversion of the North American grain harvest into ethanol plants for fuel is reaching its political and moral limits.
The UN says it takes 232kg of corn to fill a 50-litre car tank with ethanol. That is enough to feed a child for a year.
Existing grain yields are 2.4 tonnes per hectare in Ukraine, 1.8 in Russia, and 1.11 in Kazakhstan, com-pared with 6.39 in the US.
Indonesia imports two thirds of its rice and it has seen a population explosion. Should the US suffer so Indonesia can buy cheap food and increase its population? They export oil. The days of cheap oil are over and the days of cheap food are over. This should give countries like Africa a big incentive to get its agriculture sorted out rather than rely on free food from the US.
We should remember the world population is growing 70m every year. This is causing food shortages and global warming.
clipped from: www.telegraph.co.uk