If increasing our corn acres to grow fuel is bad for the environment, why is growing corn for food not bad?

Question

all the talk of growing corn for fuel is bad for the environment and contributing to the dead zone in the gulf of mexico, why is growing more acres of corn for food not equally a bad idea ? if we were to grow more corn for food and the price of it went down, would that be a crime against humanity because we wanted cheaper food and wanted to eat more? the first thing you hear when we talk about growing corn for fuel is, increasing corn acres will increase the amount of chemicals and fertilizers in the environment, but what"s the difference in growing crops for food or fuel, the results are the same.

Answer 1

Because it's creating a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. Prices for corn are skyrocketing because of people using ethanol for fuel... However, the main problem with ethanol is that it's not very efficient for cars and it may, in fact, result in a net energy loss.

Also, food is an absolute necessity to life. Fuel is not.

Answer 2

First the price of corn is high because of a) speculators and b) demand.

The amount of corn diverted into ethanol in the use is less than 5 % of the current production.

Two, 85% of the field corn grown in the USA is used in livestock feed, not human feed.

The problem isn't ethanol, it's capitalism.  The conservation reserve program was created to pay landowners to move marginal crop land into grasslands.  This reduced the air and water pollution and reduced the corn production.  It has been heralded as a great step toward conservation.  But, given time, it also increased the price of corn and soybeans (reduced supply).  Now that support has dwindled,  and you gotta make a living, now those CRP acres are headed back into corn and beans..

Now how about this.  Food has been to cheap for at least 2 generations in the US.  OUR number one disease is OBESITY!!!!  It happened because food is now used as a major entertainment function!  Food is and has been way to cheap.  It's bout time it went up.