How does using plant based fuel sources take food out of people's mouths?

Question

I read an article, and I've seen it mentioned on Y!A, that using things like corn based ethanol as fuel will take food away fom people. I don't understand how. In the US, small farmers are going broke or are getting government subsidies to not grow things. From what I can see, if these farmers start growing crops that are used as fuel, it will only help us lessen our dependence on oil. Also, the taxpayers wouldn't have to pay farmers for not working.

Answer 1

It's not so simple, but it does have a lot to do with the fundamental economic law of Supply and Demand.  Corn is still available to eat, but prices are on the rise.  Why?  Because synfuels is driving up demand for corn, which drives up prices.  In theory, there is a tipping point at which you have to choose between corn for human consumption and corn for synfuels.  Sadly I am not quite smart enough to tell you when that is, but I am sure greater minds than mine are thinking about that.

Answer 2

It is not a matter of people starving, but a principle of economics. With the explosive growth of fuels such as ethanol, bio diesel, and other uses for plants as fuel, we are taking a fixed amount of fertile soil and using it for non-food agriculture.

Rather than having a single major demand for a fixed amount of land, we have two major demands. The two major parts of demand  for food producing acres are food consumed by the population, and crops used for energy. If there are two buyers for the same product, the farmer is going to raise the prices to increase his revenues (profits) to see who will receive his harvest. As a result food prices increase, and the average consumer's budget is fixed at so many $/week that they can purchase less and less food as prices continue to escalate.

What the government is doing now to prevent rising food prices is to open the land that the farmers are no producing food into producing fuel based crops and restricting food producers from selling their harvest to energy companies. Crops such as switch grass are more energy dense and faster growing than corn. To prevent corn growers from switching their crops to switch grass, government officials are mandating certain amounts of corn to be continually produced each year, and restricting the amount of ears of corn fuel producers can purchase.

Answer 3

The first thing to realize is that there is not enough farm land in the  USA  to grow the quantity of corn to make the ethanol needed to fuel the fleet of vehicles on the road now much less in the future.

Another thing to remember is that even as the ethanol industry is going through it's infancy the cost of milk has risen to cost more than gasoline. Which creates the dilemma of what to do. Milk for the children or ethanol for the car? When you consider that the fuel mileage with ethanol is so bad and the cost is not that different from gasoline, buy the milk.

Answer 4

Not only is it reducing the ability to feed peoples around the world, corn growing for biofuels is grossly inefficient and consumptive.  We have better ways.  Growing grass is cheaper and less energy consumptive than corn.   All this stuff about using corn does one thing, make the big time farmers more wealthy.  

Small farmers like you mention are NOT big players in corn production.  You have to have a lot of land to make money growing corn.  Small farmers could be very important growing certain things for biofuel production.

Answer 5

It Doesn't.

I make fuel ethanol at a rate of 1 million gallons per week at a large distillery.  We don't use ANY food grade corn.  We use damaged, dirty, contaminated, moldy, burnt, bug-infested corn whenever possible.  Why?  It is cheaper for us, and the end result is the same.  We use animal feed corn ( still not fit for human consumption ) but this costs us more.  NONE of the corn used in ethanol production is fit for tortillas or corn flakes cereal.

Only the sugar from the corn is used by yeast to ferment ethanol.  In other words, for every 100 pounds of corn that comes into our plant, 70 pounds is shipped back out to cattle ranches or pet food factories, at deep discounts.  We sell a high quality animal feed product with more calories per pound than the original corn ( it is concentrated ) because all the plant proteins, fats, oils, and fiber cannot be used right now to make ethanol.  Our cattle food, called "Wet distiller's Grain" has more calories per pound than raw corn, is easier for cattle to digest than whole kernal corn, and is HALF the price per pound for the farmer.  I have farmers sit in their truck in line for 8 hours to get one truck load because it is such a great deal for them.  And it is a good relationship for the ethanol plant.  Without the cattle ranch, what would we do with all the "used" grain that piled up?  It would shut us down!  We'd quickly run out of places to stack it.

Ethanol Producers do NOT take food off people's plate, and actually reduce the price of beef, I know this is true for sure in the mid-west states anyhow.  And roughly 6 pounds of corn is actually "used up" to make 1 gallon of ethanol.  And a compact sedan can get 40 miles from 1 gallon of ethanol.  Sounds like a good deal to me.  For the record, 3 gallons of petroleum equivalent is used to make 5 gallons of ethanol. That is "cradle to grave" and includes planting, harvesting, transportation, and manufacturing, and distribution.  If I give you $5 in 48 hours, will you loan me $3 today?  We get ethanol from corn in 48 hours.