Source: Ted Taber

The floods in the Midwest have already killed four people. Thousands have been evacuated, and the bill for clean-up will surely run into the hundreds of millions (the Red Cross alone is spending $15 million) - the estimate for Cedar Rapids' clean up just in: $700 million.

But these are the most cosmetic costs - the ripples from this storm will spread globally. Already, the price of corn has broken through the $7/bushel point. Soybeans are also up, and I'd be shocked if the price of white corn isn't going through the roof too - it has already been kicking up the price of tortillas in Mexico. Certainly, the ethanol price is soaring to its highest point since June 2006.

Large agribusinesses are taking a hit here too. See, for instance, Archer Daniels Midland’s flatlining share price. The disaster in the Midwest has put a serious dent in their profit forecasts. There’s just less corn around for them to make money off through trading, reselling, and using in meat, ethanol and high fructose corn syrup manufacture.

Worse for them, the disaster-induced shortage is making it politically harder to support corn-based ethanol, which is making ADM’s business plans – a glorified way of saying ‘sucking at the government teat’ – a little less politically and therefore economically viable.

But not all agricultural capitalists are taking a beating. The hedge funds and commodities traders are having a ball. According to The Wall Street Journal, “the decline in the dollar and rise in crude prices is resulting in investors piling on in the corn market, buying futures in anticipation that the price will continue to rise.” Yep, it’s speculative open season.

Meanwhile, stories abound about the floods’ horrors. A recurring theme is that people who step into the floodwaters immediately seek tetanus shots. The water is utterly polluted.

I’ve not read it in any of the reports so far, but I’ll put money on some of this pollution coming from burst sewage reservoirs from Concentrated Animal Feed Lots. We saw it happen in North Carolina and there’s no reason to think that it hasn’t already in Iowa.

Citizens in Iowa have long been active in trying to Clean Up Iowa. They’ve been stymied by large agricultural interests. The University of Iowa is the place I’d go to find more information – they’ve a fine research unit looking at some aspects of CAFOs, but at the time of writing, the University site says:

“Due to the flood situation on campus, The University has suspended normal operations. Classes have been cancelled and UI employees designated as non-essential are asked to stay home beginning Friday, June 13 through Sunday, June 22.” ... read more »

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Posted on 17 June, 2008 - 05:10

Not for nothing is gender one of the most frequent tags here at Stuffed and Starved. The modern food system is tilted against women, in everything from land ownership to life expectancy because of poor diet to, now, access to the biofuels market. The road ahead is long. ... read more »

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Posted on 29 April, 2008 - 19:29

From the African Biodiversity Network comes a tale of plunder, opportunism, and greed, a story of how biofuels are providing a pretext for privatisation. Full story below the fold. ... read more »

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Posted on 21 April, 2008 - 03:41

Food First, the Institute at which I'm a Fellow in Oakland, California, has come out with some fine material over the past week. First, they've put out a fantastic take-down of biofuels (more properly agrofuels), in a report with the perfect title: When Renewable Isn't Sustainable.

They've also got this handy list of food riots, to which we can add the travails in Argentina (thanks to Mary Robertson for sending news about this). I'll be writing about the other omission from this list in the next post: rice riots. ... read more »

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Posted on 5 April, 2008 - 22:49

Source

Eric Holt Gimenez over at Food First sent along this wee nugget from Grand Island, Nebraska.

It's a story about biofuels, based on a report from, er, the American Meat Institute, which ascribes the rise in the price of meat to biofuels. The estimates per animal are striking: "the costs [are] 53 cents per chicken; $3.40 per turkey; $38 per hog and $117.50 per fed beef animal." These are the costs associated with higher corn-feed for the animals, the price of which has been driven up by the US governments hare-brained biofuels schemes.

But statistics, like love, is a battlefield. ... read more »

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Posted on 20 March, 2008 - 22:32

All credit to him. Mike Huckabee has a sense of humour about his prospects in the US election.

So now that Mitt Romney has dropped out there are only three candidates worth taking seriously. Since this is Stuffed and Starved I ought probably to find a food related angle to the candidates, rather than posting a couple more suprisingly good Saturday Night Live clips like this one ... read more »

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Posted on 28 February, 2008 - 16:41

As the New York Times points out, here and here, biofuels aren't all they're cracked up to be. The revelation was prompted by an article in Science which breaks it down quite nicely. Here's the abstract: ... read more »

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Posted on 10 February, 2008 - 05:59

Palm oil is to South East Asia what sugar-cane is to Brazil: a license for some to print money, and for others to become landless, while at the same time sacrificing the environment for chimerical carbon savings. Not good. Not good at all. The full BBC Story is pasted below.

Losing land to palm oil in Kalimantan
By James Painter
BBC News, West Kalimantan

Barto is more sad than angry. He is a leader of a Dayak Kanayan community in a remote part of the rainforest in deepest Borneo. ... read more »

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Posted on 3 October, 2007 - 00:18

The Tablet magazine has just published a piece I wrote explaining who wins and who loses from the rising price of food. Here's the full piece.

Bitter Harvest

The switch from fossil to biofuels is being encouraged by governments to combat global warming but emissions in their manufacture are worse than burning diesel. Now the quantity of land required is contributing to a worldwide shortage of food. ... read more »

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Posted on 7 September, 2007 - 20:36

My mate Eric Holt-Gimenez, exec director at FoodFirst, has just published a splendid piece in the International Herald Tribune (original here in which he knocks down the following lies:

• Biofuels are clean and green.
• Biofuels will not result in deforestation.
• Biofuels will bring rural development.
• Biofuels will not cause hunger.

It's a fine take-down, and one that I know he won't mind if I repost here.
_____________________

The Biofuel Myths ... read more »

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Posted on 11 July, 2007 - 08:05