Mo' money mo' problems

The Economist tackles the causes of the rise in food prices here:

"Increasing wealth in China and India... is stoking demand for meat in those countries, in turn boosting the demand for cereals to feed to animals. The use of grains for bread, tortillas and chapattis is linked to the growth of the world's population. It has been flat for decades, reflecting the slowing of population growth. But demand for meat is tied to economic growth and global GDP is now in its fifth successive year of expansion at a rate of 4%-plus."

It Goes Against The Grain

Remember the pigs who were eating junk food because the price of corn had been driven up by demand for corn to produce US-subsidized ethanol? Is the biofuel worth it? I'm all for (well-considered) alternative sources of energy, but the chain reaction that these subsidies have sparked just keeps going.

It turns out that other crops are being turned into biofuels too, notably wheat, which is an integral (and in some forms highly nutritious) part of many diets. Durum wheat in particular is used to make Italian pasta. Now the BBC reports that the Industrial Union of Pasta Makers will be investigated for price fixing after they warned prices would rise this autumn by 20%, which they attribute solely to the rising cost of durum wheat. Irrespective of whether this price fixing is going on, it is true that the price of durum wheat has increased even more than other varieties and continues to break record prices. This is partly due to environmental factors such as poor growing conditions this year, but also to increased demand for wheat for biofuel production and to the fact that land once occupied by wheat is being switched to corn fields for more biofuel.

Not that corn is always good thing for the food supply, which is what I gather Aaron Woolf and Curt Ellis have concluded in their film "King Corn" reviewed recently by The New York Times. Corn is used as feed for animals, the majority of whom live in squalid conditions with little quality of life, as well as to produce corn syrup and corn oil, neither of which are particularly good for us.

Though corn and wheat (well, primarily their highly processed derivatives) are maligned for health reasons in industrialized countries, they are still a primary source of sustenance for many of the world's poorest people. It is true that reducing emissions is very important, but must it impact so directly on the quality and cost of food? According to the International Herald Tribune the UN's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, agrees with me. He says there should be a five-year moratorium on the production of biofuel due to its effect on world hunger. Hear hear.

This little piggy ate junk food

The Food Section linked today to a highly disturbing article from the Wall Street Journal. Lauren Etter reports that due to rising demand for corn-based ethanol, a biofuel subsidized by the U.S. government, corn prices have risen so much that farmers are seeking other foodstuffs to feed their livestock. The result? Pigs and other animals are increasingly being fed "cookies, licorice, cheese curls, candy bars, french fries, frosted wheat cereal and peanut-butter cups" and other "human" junk food as a main part of their diet. Some farmers even feed piglets a "Cocoa Puffs"-like mixture of chocolate powder and cereal.

Why is this so shocking, when humans eat this stuff every day? I'm not a nutritionist, but it is generally accepted that junk food is not good for you and is only acceptable as part of a balanced diet. According to the WSJ article some farmers are using 100% "byproducts" to feed their livestock. I accept that this may be a passable way to put flesh on the bones of these animals in terms of food safety (without considering animal welfare), but I don't eat cheesies and trail mix all the time and I don't want to eat an animal that has, either.

Lauren Etter also commented that "Thanks to the ethanol rush, the price of a bushel of corn for months has hovered around $4 -- nearly double the price of a few years ago. That has prompted livestock groups like the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the National Chicken Council to call for an end to federal ethanol subsidies, including a 51-cent-per-gallon tax credit offered to companies that blend gasoline with ethanol. For now, livestock must pay up or make do with alternatives."

Of course farmers are concerned about their bottom lines and have to maintain a profit margin, but environmentally it seems to me that the business of feeding animals junk food goes against the grain (better watch out for those puns). Is it energy efficient to feed animals highly processed food so that corn can be used to produce subsidized biofuel? I don't know.