Many nations have decided (in the last couple of years) to ramp up their production of corn-based ethanol. The interest in getting in on a lucrative alternative fuel market was overwhelming to those nations, but the effort has caused some spin-off problems.
People in Mexico began noticing that food products made of corn (like tortillas) began to rise dramatically; protests broke out across Mexico. Similar things happened in other countries across the world; the loudmouth leader of communist Venezuela was braying like an elephant about it.
In this country, it had an effect on the price of milk, cheeses, corn products and other products: soap and ice cream are experiencing shortages of corn-based ingredients, which may actually cause shortages as well as price increases.
That shouldn't be happening, but it is. There's only so much land in temperate zones that are dedicated solely to corn production. Any diversion of corn away from the food processing market will cause consumer prices to rise at the grocery stores. That isn't a good idea.
Brazil seems to have the best solution for ethanol production: they're using sugar cane, which doesn't have as huge an impact on grocery prices as corn does.
This is a major stumbling block in the search for an alternative fuel. I don't know what the solution is.
2 comments:
This is not only affecting the price of corn-based products. My cousins are being paid by the government to grow barley on their farm, because nobody wants to grow anything but corn. Think the price of barley might go up, too?
Oh, yes.
Everything will go up eventually as more farmers switch over to corn production. In fact, it's already happening across the agricultural sector. Several stories have appeared detailing the impact that this is having on other crops that are being abandoned in favor of corn.
It's unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected.
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