"are we going to use our precious farmland to grow food, or use it to make motor fuel?"
More broadly, "it is a battle between the world's 800 million automobile owners, who want to maintain their mobility, and the world's two billion poorest people, who simply want to survive."
The answer should be obvious.In the 18th and 19th centuries, the U.S. economy was primarily based on farmers solely focused on producing food and fiber. And while the U.S. was moderately prosperous, it was not a world leader, ...constrained by the amount of arable land.
Last September, Lester Brown, the president of the Earth Policy Institute (a group that promotes "an environmentally sustainable economy") wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece that the amount of grain needed to make enough ethanol to fill a 25-gallon SUV tank "would feed one person for a full year. If the United States converted its entire grain harvest into ethanol, it would satisfy less than 16 percent of its automotive needs." Brown said the ongoing ethanol boom in the U.S. was "setting the stage for an epic competition. In a narrow sense, it is one between the world's supermarkets and its service stations."
"ethanol simply cannot provide enough motor fuel to make a significant difference in America's fuel consumption. And like Brown, he laid bare the essential question: food or fuel?"
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