Will Anyone Ever Show The Courage To Call Out Big Corn

The US government has dictated that we bur billions of gallons of ethanol in our cars. This has made Iowa corn farmers very rich and everyone else very much poorer, while not improving our energy status one little bit.

An analysis by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development suggested that replacing even 10% of America's motor fuel with biofuels would require that about a third of all the nation's cropland be devoted to oilseeds, cereals and sugar crops. Achieving the 15% goal would require the entire current U.S. corn crop, which represents a whopping 40% of the world's corn supply.

In the short and medium term, ethanol can do little to affect oil consumption. But the diversion of grain from food to fuel exerts widespread and profound ripple effects on various commodity markets. It has already been catastrophic for the poor around the world.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's food price index, which is based on export prices for 60 internationally traded foodstuffs, climbed 37% last year, following a 14% increase in 2006. Protests have erupted in Pakistan and Indonesia over wheat and soybean shortages, respectively, and China has imposed price controls on many staple foods.

Keith Bradsher, writing in the New York Times, reveals another outcome of the shortages: "Smugglers have been bidding up prices as they move the (palm) oil from more subsidized markets, like Malaysia's, to less subsidized markets, like Singapore's."

The shortages and rise in the prices of edible oils have had a devastating impact on the nutrition of poor families not only in Asia, but also in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Any sort of shock to yields, such as drought, unseasonably hot or cold weather, pests or disease in the next few years could send food prices further into the stratosphere and cause unprecedented social upheavals.

Big Oil, Big Pharmaceutic, Big Wal-Mart are all enemies, but each actually does good. What does Big Ethanol do for anyone?