Bishop Hill Biofuels cause starvation
That's according to the head of Nestlé, the global food conglomerate:
Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the chairman of Nestlé, lashed out at the Obama administration for promoting the use of ethanol made from corn, at the expense of hundreds of millions of people struggling to afford everyday basics made from the crop.
Mr Brabeck-Letmathe weighed in to the increasingly acrimonious debate over food price inflation to condemn politicians around the world who seem determined to blame financial speculators instead of tackling underlying imbalances in supply and demand. And he reserved especially pointed remarks for US agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack, who he said was making "absolutely flabbergasting" claims for the country's ability to cope with rising domestic and global demand for corn.
Reader Comments (13)
Quote, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, "so I think – I insist – no food for fuel"
It begs the question how damaging has the environmental movement been for the environment?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,751469,00.html
It would appear that environmentalism doesn't work at all.
Excellent read, mac, thanks!
Some 40% of the US corn (maize) crop goes into biofuel. This has driven up the cost of fertilizer for the other 60% so the cost of beef, poultry, corn, and other foods are all driven up by both the demand on the available crop and the price of fertilizer.
I follow the stock market and the only ones making out are those on Wall Street,
Excellent point, Mac. It seems particularly dumb and totally contrary to what I assumed to be the idea of environmentalism to use food for fuel. Obviously, when people such as Obama say "Yes we Can!" they have no idea of the unintended consequences of that which they 'can'.
Quite a large number of the comments to that article are, well, astonishing.
Mind, they perfectly illustrate the mindset of our AGW religionists: don't think, don't listen, especially if you can smear the messenger ...
Thanks for that link, mac!
Trust the Germans to take a closer look at the supposedly 'green paradise' they're supposedly living in ...
Nestlé on the moral high ground? That's a first!
What?
Green ideology impacting on world food supplies leads to
starvation and deathunexpected consequences?This is typical of the politics of green intervention. The 'financial speculators' are blamed, but what is ignored is that the hedgies and investment banks only game the markets like this when there is underlying pressure on supply and price.
That wasn't created by speculators so much as by warped energy policies and their 'unintended consequences'.
NB: I do not attempt to exonerate the speculators. Their opportunism and naked greed is not excused because it gained traction in the evil stupidity of others.
"food price inflation" what a confusing term in the literal sense, probably why it's used in substitute of rising price due to scarcity.
keep on subdividing the word inflation until you're left with things that represent no meaning. If your town's favorite cookie baker goes on holidays, the price for his cookies may go up, but that is not inflation. It’s scarcity."
Just raises more questions...
How much "biofuel" is used per year globally? How much oil is saved by this use? and could oil production be increased to negate the use of biofuel?
Don Pablo
What happens to all the ethanol produced? I recall a product called 'gasahol' some years back (petrol with about 10% ethanol, about as much as much as an unmodified engine could manage) - has that made a comeback, or is it used some other way? Just curious.
BBD
speculation has nothing to do with the price rises, unless those speculators are actually taking delivery of the corn and hoarding it.
diogenese
Do you know what the futures market is?