Science 28th May 2008
M.Lockyer
Do you believe that the food price hikes are linked to the increased production of ethanol?
YES, I think the increased production of ethanol is one of the main reasons behind the drastic food price increase. Ethanol is a farm grown fuel made from distilled plant matter. Countries have realised that more income is generated from the production of ethanol than the production of crops for food. Many farms that used to farm to provide food have been converted to produce ethanol. This means that less food is produced throughout the region so there becomes a food shortage. Because there are less crops the price of those crops have to be increased which then causes a chain reaction of price increases. For example ethanol is produced from corn, because the corn is being used to produce ethanol there is less corn for food purposes. This leads to the price of corn increasing. Corn is used to feed chicken, hogs and cattle so the price of meat, eggs and dairy will also increase. Corn is the main link in this chain so if you damage this link by having small amounts of corn it in turn damages the rest of the chain, being the producers of meat, eggs, dairy etc. These producers are forced to raise the prices of their products in order to make a profit.