We’ve heard the critics say how the ethanol boom is causing the price of many of our food sources to rise. The New York Times reports that the United States is buying less than half the amount of food for aid than it did earlier this decade.
The higher food prices have not only reduced the amount of American food aid for the hungry, but are also making it harder for the poorest people to buy food for themselves, economists and advocates for the hungry say.
“We fear the steady rise of food prices will hit those on the front lines of hunger the hardest,†said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the United Nations World Food Program. The United States is the biggest contributor to the agency.
This is a HUGE story that almost nobody’s talking about yet. The problems facing corn as a biofuel are many, and edibility is one of the biggest. However, I’ve been writing about another biofuel source called jatropha that could be a partial answer to this problem. Not only is this plant poisonous to eat, it produces oodles of oil that can literally be burned like diesel fuel… and it grows in arid areas of Africa and India like a weed, meaning it could bring monies to people in these depressed areas. To read more about it, please check out my bloggerino at http://www.greeninvestments.blogspot.com! Great blog by the way – I link to socialroi!