Rising Food Prices? Can't Blame Ethanol

by John Block (Chicago Tribune) With food prices rising worldwide, some self-styled authorities on agriculture are claiming that producing ethanol in the Midwest causes food riots in the Middle East.
Their story is simple: Biofuels are gobbling up the grains that would otherwise be used to feed the world's poor. Just limit the production and use of ethanol and — presto! — food will be abundant, affordable and available all across the globe.
But this theory of food-versus-fuel flies in the face of four facts:
First, U.S. ethanol production uses only about 3 percent of the world's grain supply...
Second, about a third of the corn used for ethanol becomes a co-product: livestock feed for cattle, poultry and hogs. ...
Third, volatile energy costs are the real drivers of all consumer prices including for food. Energy impacts every facet of food production from growing the crops to processing the food to transporting it to market. ...
Fourth — and most important — American farmers are increasing their productivity. ...In fact, crop yields have increased so spectacularly that the majority of the corn used for ethanol comes from gains in efficiency and growth — not from cropland expansion.
...Far from biofuels stealing food from hungry humanity, the world's food crisis would be much worse were it not for the innovations that the ethanol industry has encouraged in American agriculture. READ MORE