Yesterday, Eli Stephens posted this cartoon by Stephanie McMillan to jumpstart a discussion about its content. Unlike this question, which I’d like to ask of every American who promotes Christian crusading around the globe and evangelical social engineering here in the states, I believe McMillan is oversimplifying a complicated issue and is sounding the wrong alarm in the strip that Eli links.
There’s a stubby-headed redneck filling his vehicle with ethanol. The protagonist asks him, “Global grain stocks are the lowest in 30 years. There’s a major world food crisis looming, and you’re using corn to run an SUV?”
He replies, “Jeez, it’s ethanol! Aren’t you freaking environmentalists ever happy?”
And the bunny closes, “Yes! We’ll be happy to see nobody hungry, and to see you walking.”
I’d be happy to see the U.S. convert all of its GM corn yields into ethanol and ban the seeds until the manufacturers could produce legitimate studies “grounded in the best avaliable science” that they’re safe for human consumption. As it stands, the seed manufacturers have all but entirely robbed American growers of the organic option by infesting the ground with their products and are determined to spread patent-protected seeds globally. Famine is a weapon, the ultimate bargaining tool, an intentional by-product of U.S.-led policies to monopolise the agricultural industry, not due a shortage of technology or means to feed the hungry. Possibly, if corn is burned by the U.S., global producers who’ve been subsidised into oblivion or whose governments have sold them out for IMF/WTO loans may enjoy a brief window of opportunity to market their crops.
Another notch in the ‘Belt’
Plant genetics offer options to Midwest farmers
By Tom Webb
11 June 2006 St. Paul Pioneer Press
“It’s a good thing when a president can sit there and say, ‘Gosh, we’ve got a lot of corn,'” Bush says. “That means we’re less dependent on foreign sources of oil. Years back, they’d say, ‘Oh gosh, we’ve got a lot of corn’ and worried about the price.”
Of course, people still worry about the price, which hasn’t been too good for farmers lately. Nevertheless, in 2005 Minnesota farmers grew $2 billion worth of corn, and $1.6 billion worth of soybeans. That enormous output also served as a foundation for Minnesota’s livestock, grain processing, energy and food industries.
People worry about subsidies, too, which kick in when prices are low, and multiply when production expands. U.S. taxpayers paid nearly $1 billion to Minnesota farmers in 2005, with the lion’s share of that going to corn growers.
Part of that was because of Minnesota’s amazing corn yields. Farmers didn’t just set a record – they shattered it – with the statewide corn yield rising 15 bushels to 174 bushels an acre. Excellent weather gets some credit. But Minnesota has had good weather before, agronomists note; what’s new are today’s high-tech crops, modified to do things their ancestors never could.
The article goes on to sell the idea that GM seeds must be drought resistant, despite the excellent weather, and fails to mention that “organic crops perform up to 100 percent better in drought and flood years.” But it provides yet another example of how giant leeches like Monsanto are able to suck the world dry thanks to the American taxpayer.
Global Food Supply Near the Breaking Point
Stephen Leahy
BROOKLIN, Canada, May 17 (IPS) – The world is now eating more food than farmers grow, pushing global grain stocks to their lowest level in 30 years.
Rising population, water shortages, climate change, and the growing costs of fossil fuel-based fertilisers point to a calamitous shortfall in the world’s grain supplies in the near future, according to Canada’s National Farmers Union (NFU).
[…]
“The food production system is designed to generate profits, not produce food or nutrition for people,” Qualman told IPS.
He says there are enormous amounts of food stored in central Canada’s farming heartland, but thousands of people there, including some farm families, are forced to rely on food banks.
“It’s a system that’s perfectly happy to leave hundreds of millions of people unfed,” he said.
[…]
Shifting from a global food production system to local food for local people would go a long way towards addressing inequity, Qualman believes.
“The 100-mile diet, where people obtain their food from within a 100-mile radius of their homes, makes good sense for most of the world,” he said.
The whole fabric of the food production system needs to change, or hunger and malnutrition will only get much worse.
“North America’s industrial-style agricultural system is a really bad idea and maybe the worst on the planet,” Qualman concluded.
In the long-run, corn-based ethanol is not a cure for dependency on fossil fuels. But corn ( mostly grown for livestock) is not a requirement for the production of ethanol.
Ethanol fuel can also be produced from a variety of other crops such as sugar beet, sorghum, switch grass, barley, hemp, kenaf, potatoes, cassava and sunflower. Moreover, many types of cellulose waste can also produce ethanol fuel through fermentation. However, all such processes produce large amount of ethanol fuel. Smaller quantities of ethanol fuel can be produced from stalks, wastes, clippings, straw, corncobs, and other farm wastes that are often used for fertilizer, animal feed, or electric power plant fuels.
The technology appears to be headed in the right direction, unlike globalisation:
India’s new outsourcing business – wombs
By Sudha Ramachandran
In the United States, a couple would have to fork out about US$15,000 to the surrogate mother and another $30,000 to agencies involved. In India, they can do this on a smaller budget – the entire cost ranges between $2,500 and $5,000.
[…]
India’s laws favor reproductive tourists. Unlike in Britain, for instance, where a surrogate mother who has contributed the egg can claim the baby she has delivered as her own at any time during the first two years of the child’s life, in India the surrogate mother signs away her rights to the baby as soon as she has delivered it. Furthermore, in India implanting of five embryos into the womb of the surrogate mother is permissible. In Britain, a maximum of two is allowed.
It is mainly women from the lower middle class who are offering to be surrogate mothers. They earn about $2,500, which is big money in a country where the per capita annual income is just $500 and where about 35% of the population lives on less than $1 a day.