More in our sporadic series on ethanol dominos* from the TimesOnline (November 3):
When Americans sit down to their Thanksgiving dinner in three weeks’ time, they will not be expressing gratitude for the surging price of the food on the table. The price of only one main ingredient in the traditional meal has remained stable over the past year. The turkey, cranberry sauce, green beans, ingredients for the pastry for pumpkin pie, ice-cream on top, and the cheese to go with crackers, have all soared in price. Only potato has held steady.
A global shortage of dairy produce and a doubling of the price of corn in the past 12 months has propelled food price inflation to its highest rate in America since the early 1990s.
Corn prices have shot up because energy companies are buying the grain to produce ethanol. While America this year produced about 200 million barrels of the clear, clean biofuel, the process withdrew 10 per cent of supplies from US grain stores.
Corn is crucial to America’s food industry. Half of it is used as animal feed, so the soaring price has lifted the cost of maintaining dairy and beef herds, poultry farms and piggeries. The oil price – which hit $96 a barrel on Thursday – means that the cost of distributing food has also climbed.
See here and here and here and here for other ethanol domino posts
