The House Agriculture Committee endorsed a letter this week to Budget Chairman Paul Ryan arguing that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps low-income Americans purchase food, would make a better target for cuts than automatic subsidies to farms.

I have a better idea. Let’s quit the ethanol nonsense, and revert back to using corn for food and feed. Then perhaps the price of corn will go down, resulting in lower food costs. You still want to cut SNAP? Then stick to growing corn for food and feed and work towards reducing the cost of food overall.

Farm subsides have been given out since the Great Depression. Due to our current economic situation, it’s time to reevaluate the program.

NationalJournal.com – Ag Committee Supports Cuts to Food Assistance, Not Farm Subsidies – Monday, March 21, 2011.

The Corn Refiners Association, which represents firms that make the syrup, has been trying to improve the image of the much maligned sweetener with ad campaigns promoting it as a natural ingredient made from corn. Now, the group has petitioned the United States Food and Drug Administration to start calling the ingredient “corn sugar,” arguing that a name change is the only way to clear up consumer confusion about the product.

Read more –> A New Name for High-Fructose Corn Syrup – NYTimes.com.

President Bush has linked higher food prices to higher demand from India and China, but the leaked World Bank study disputes that: “Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases

The news also suggests that the report was finished back in April, but was held back:

Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.

It all sounds to corny to me, hehehe….

Yeah, right. Same old story.

A recent NYTimes Editorial describes the current situation. Although the rise in food prices are partly a result of “uncontrollable forces — including rising energy costs and the growth of the middle class in China and India”, rich nations are making the problem worse by increasing biofuel production:

The International Monetary Fund estimates that corn ethanol production in the United States accounted for at least half the rise in world corn demand in each of the past three years. This elevated corn prices. Feed prices rose. So did prices of other crops — mainly soybeans — as farmers switched their fields to corn, according to the Agriculture Department.

Rice is a staple for half the world. Rice prices have almost doubled this year, mostly due to countries like India and Vietnam banning the export of certain types of rice. India has tried to control domestic costs by raising the export prices of non-basmati rice. In Thailand, there are reports that about 200,000 tons of rice (worth over $100 million) have gone missing from national warehouses. Since January, thousands of troops have been deployed in Pakistan to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour.

In a world where there are millions of people who are wealthy, smart, and creative, we shouldn’t be rioting over food.

Two major trends have been pushing prices up faster than they have risen for more than 30 years. One is that increasingly prosperous consumers in India and China are not only eating more food but eating more meat. Animals have to be fed (grains, usually) before they are butchered. The other is that more and more crops – from corn to palm nuts – are being used to make biofuels instead of feeding people.

The amount of corn it takes to produce 75 litres of ethanol– roughly a tank of fuel– is enough corn to feed one person on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet for a year

Of course, the Iowa Corn Promotion Board will be right there saying it’s not their fault.

I would partly agree, in that they are not entirely responsible. Of course oil prices, labor costs, transportation costs, etc share some of the blame. But the article ends by advocating the supposedly low extra cost of corn in order to reduce our dependance on foreign oil. [Gee thanks!! So what kind of gas guzzling truck do you drive? ] As more and more farmers switch to growing corn for biofuel rather than food production, food prices have to go up.

Ethanol producers in this country receive a tax credit of 51 cents a gallon, on top of billions of dollars in direct corn subsidies. (In 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available, it was $9 billion.) In Europe biodiesel subsidies can approach $2 a gallon. 

Where does the feed for chicken, pigs, and cattle come from? If farmers can get more money for sending the corn to ethanol distilleries rather than food production facilities, the economics of supply and demand would dictate that food prices would go up. Corn is used everywhere. Less corn for everyday staples, means higher costs for everyday staples.

And as the National Corn Growers Association themselves say, “Ethanol production makes huge amounts of the nation’s corn disappear”.

From ENS, “U.S. taxpayers, by subsidizing the conversion of grain into ethanol, are in effect financing a rise in their own food prices. It is time to end the subsidy for converting food into fuel and to do it quickly before the deteriorating world food situation spirals out of control. “

All this while in Haiti, they’re literally eating dirt, because food prices have gone up.

Here’s an innovative way to make ethanol cheaply, without corn.