Is it more important to fill a car with fuel or feed a starving child?

Question

We are 40 days away from a worldwide grain shortage and part of the problem is that so much grain crop is being used to make biofuel, there is not enough left to feed the 73 million that depend on the World food programme for food.

The amount of grain used to make one tankful of bioethanol can feed a person for a year. Whats more important, food or fuel?

Answer 1

Easy -- fuel.

The starving child does not affect me.

However, not being able to hit up my local MccyD's drive-thru during a SERIOUS Mac-attack does.

Answer 2

Before you start blaming the World Food Programme, ask yourself why food sent to those countries gets diverted into the pockets of corrupt officials. This world provides PLENTY  of food for all, And before the automobile, people fed their horses, didn't they???

A little sense can go a long way. And you can make  bioethanol from switchgrass - the same stuff buffalo used to eat before the white man came and killed them all.

Answer 3

Unfortunately in this selfish and uncaring world, it is easier to maintain the status-quo than to make great efforts to serve the starving and thirsty people in third world countries. I do a small amount of charity work and raise money by firwalking and bungee jumping etc but my contribution is lost in the whole picture.

Fortunately, many Churches and Christian groups are involved with humanitarian aid and many less die of starvation than would otherwise.

So in answer to your question......let's feed the world...all of us.

Even if you stop using your car for one day a week and donate the fuel costs to charity......

Incidentally, the 40 days away from shortage is not a given fact..it is only theory at present from certain quarters...but still enough to give cause for concern.

Best wishes, Mike.

Answer 4

Depends.  Where is the starving child?

Answer 5

There's enough grain/corn for both.  Do some research for a change.  The real problem is human overpopulation and people having too many kids.  If reckless reproduction was stopped starvation would disappear soon afterwards.

Answer 6

Many of those countries are starving due to civil wars caused by their great^100 grandfather stealing a cow from somebody in another tribe.

Answer 7

It all depends on who you are and what you situation is.

Answer 8

Maybe we should get the Big Oil companies to answer this.  When they are charging farmers over $4.00 a gallon to power their farm equipment, what's wrong with them turning their grain into fuel.

Grain ethanol is only a temporary solution.  Cellulosic ethanol is a better solution.  But with any new technology like this, it takes time to get this into full production.

Answer 9

Biofuel is fine in Europe. Why? Because we have vast quantities of grain standing in towers doing nothing. Why? Because farmers have to pay subsidies in order to send it abroad, such is the agricultural policy in Europe. How much better would it be without these trading barriers?

Something I object to is the developed world setting up agribusinesses in poor countries to sell crops for profit.

Biofuels should definitely not be grown in areas where food shortages are a problem.

Answer 10

Without fuel for my car, I would be unable to earn a living, so who is going to house, cloth and feed me, and pay my bills?

Answer 11

Chompy has a far better answer than mine.  Very excellent, I second it.

Answer 12

Who's child?   Who's car?   My mother used to tell me to finish my food since children were starving in Africa.   I said I'd give them my food and got smacked upside the head more than once.   It's true though- we might have excess grain and they might be starving, but getting the food to them is the problem.   Most often they could grow enough food for themselves IF they would stop their tribal wars and act like humans.    They instead would rather fight between them selves over ancient grudges.    

So whats more important to them, fighting or feeding their children?   If killing each other is more important to them, why should I care if they starve?

Answer 13

stARVING CHILD

Answer 14

Definately more important to feed a starving child.

A matter of life and death is always more important than our ultimately transient technology.

You already know my views on biofuel. The environmental cost of growing, producing, and distributing it negates any benefits, and I suspect the whole idea may be just another way to make money for the big US corporations that fund it.

If we do have a surplus of grain, as stated by an answerer above, wouldn't a far better use for it be to feed starving people in the third world? Why should people go without food if there is a surplus?

Rather than finding new sources of carbon based fuels, we should be looking at developing completely different ways of powering our vehicles, like the combustion of hydrogen. I'm sure if there was the will to do it, our scientists and technologists could come up with an efficient hydrogen based engine and a cost-effective way to produce the required hydrogen.

Answer 15

THIS IS A COMPLETE AND UTTER LIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have a surplus of grain. I live in a farming community and we have excess grain on the ground outside the mills that are over full. In the US we have what is called "set aside land" where the government pays us NOT to plant in order to keep from "overproducing" This whole starving children BS is made up by the Socialists that want to run your life!

I know you will never believe me because they have brain washed you city folk into believing this lie. This is such a blatant lie it is shameful that people actually fall for it.

FYI: The corn and soy used for fuel production is what we call feed grade. It is not used for human consumption and is ONLY used for fuel or animal feed!!!!

Answer 16

Food def.  Thats the problem with this country sometimes, they care more about money then they do people.

Answer 17

It depends on if the grain is 10 miles away and if you are willing to walk that 10 miles to get it.  Remember there are still some small towns in this country.  So if you live in the city fill free to walk to the store and save that grain.

Answer 18

Heralda, your question is just too bleeding heart, emotion-filled and is not comparing like subjects.  With subsidies, buying and selling of government owned surpluses and payments to farmers NOT to grow food crops in order to support prices and keep the farmers in business, there is more than enough land to grow fuel crops and let farmers prosper.  The type of crops grown for fuel are not the same as grown for human consumption.  

Then look at a country like Zimbabwe.  It used to produce great amounts of food and exported it.  Now, due to idiocy in government, the people there are starving.  Most of the hunger around the world is the direct result of inept and corrupt governments in those countries.  Let people have the freedom to grow and sell their own crops for their own benefit and without excessive taxes and regulation and no one need starve except by natural disasters.

It takes 6 bushels, 336 lbs, of animal feed grade corn to make enough ethanol to fill a 16 gallon tank.  One can grow 180 bushels of corn on one acre.  Enough for one person to eat in a year on a 40 X 40 foot field.  Divide the arable land in any country into fields that size and it will far exceed the population, which proves that it is possible for every country to grow more than enough food for itself, barring droughts, floods, etc.  Wheat and other grains are not used for making fuel.  But why not complain about the grains being used to make beer or other alcoholic beverages?  Isn't that evil too?  Consider too the cost of transporting the human grade corn using oil-based fuel or coal power.  I would say you are also opposed to using fossil fuels.

While biofuels may never replace oil, they can help reduce our dependence on them and on those countries that produce the oil, many of whom have societies that hate us and wish to conquer us.  Also corn is NOT the best crop for fuel production, switchgrass or sorghum are better, but the best would be some crops genetically engineered to be high in sugar, starch or oil.  Plants that would withstand dry weather and poor soil and still produce well.

The question is not food OR fuel, but how do we have food AND fuel?

Answer 19

The corn/soy beans used to make bio fuel is not suitable for human consumption.

With all the fertlile land we have we need to find ways to do both.

The way you posed your question will illicit gut responses. Of course ppl want to feed hungry children.

However if we dont have fuel to move around our farm equipment then we would not be able to feed hungry children.