There are starving people in Africa, you know

New Scientist Magazine reports today:

"The corn required to fill an SUV tank with bioethanol just once could feed someone in Africa for a year."

A subscription is required to read the complete article.

I'm not the only one...

The Slow Cook blogged today about ethanol and it's contribution to rising food prices. Again, much more eloquent and better researched than anything I could write on this topic.

"Mounting food crises around the globe destabilized governments and began to look more and more like a cruel joke perpetrated by the rich northern hemisphere against its poorer brethren in the south..."

Biofuel

You know, I had a gut reaction to biofuel a few years ago. Everyone was jumping on the ethanol bandwagon, claiming that corn based fuel will save us all. But it seemed so wrong. We EAT corn. Millions of people don't have enough to eat. Why would we put FOOD in our cars? Wouldn't it be easier to, you know, drive a little less?

According to a recent article in TIME, I'm right. "...biofuels pit the 800 million people with cars against the 800 million people with hunger problems."

We've all experienced the rising costs of fuel the last few years. And now we're seeing a rise in the cost of food. These things are not unrelated.