Today, a Central American newspaper reports that corn is expected to be scarce in Guatemala in coming months due to the United States' "buying and hoarding massive amounts of the grain."
The Salvadoran Center for Appropriate Technology says this is just the beginning of the negative effects for the region due to the massive ethanol production promoted by the United States.
Yesterday, Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations, Rodrigo Malmierca, reaffirmed his country's position against the use of food crops as biofuels when more than two billion people across the world are starving.
He told the UN Sustainable Development Commission that the new corn ethanol emphasis would create a devastating crisis in countries where more than 50 percent of the population depends on agriculture.
Malmierca said that despite many environmental agreements and commitments, the global situation, characterized by inequity, poverty and the loss of natural resources, is actually getting worse.
Earlier this year, observers almost universally agreed that the rising price of corn due to ethanol production has driven a doubling or tripling of tortilla prices in Mexico (see this and this.)
Submitted by Dallas Kachan on May 16, 2007 - 6:58am.
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Yes, the use of ethanol from corn promotes injustice. By driving up the price of corn, people in poorer parts of the world must suffer even more through increased scarcity. By using corn produced ethanol to fuel our cars, we burn up food which would provide for the life of others.
The trade off between our convenience and the starvation of the poor does not seem just. Why should we be using an essential food product to produce fuel for vehicles? What makes it right that the pedal to the metal means the equivalent of cutting food supplies to those in need? This will never do for it is a form of man's inhumanity to man.
adrianakau@aol.com