If you’re a vegetarian, you might want to skip this one … but, then again, maybe not.
Pres. Bush’s new energy policy mandating minimum levels of annual biofuel production is likely to have unintended consequences on the price of beef.
For one thing, it’s driving up the price of corn because most ethanol in the United States is produced from corn.
That’s real good news for the folks who grow corn and soybeans and the like for a living, many of whom have struggled merely to survive the last decade or so.
It’s real bad news for cattle producers and those of us who maintain that we didn’t climb to the top of the food chain to eat broccoli.
Here’s why: with the spike in the price of corn comes a corresponding increase in the price of beef. And pork. And any other commercially-grown food animal or bird fattened on corn and soy feed.
The more that corn is diverted to biofuel, the higher the demand. The higher the demand, the less is available for cattle production and the more expensive meat products become.
Talk about a double whammy (as opposed to a double cheeseburger).
The cost of fuel is driving up the price of all food products at the consumer level ... and, alternative fuels are actually taking food off our tables.
Now, this piece has been approached with tongue planted firmly in cheek but the issue of using a pervasive, staple food source to power our cars does have some profound implications for global hunger.
Not only will your ribeye steak get more expensive, more folks in sub-Sahara Africa will go hungry.
We may soon face a choice: corn for meat or corn for fuel.
Suddenly, vegetarianism may become a more attractive option.
This was published as an editorial in the Hays Free Press
