For the first time since the 1970s, food is becoming less affordable.
Last year, the average U.S. family of four was hit with $2,000 in increased food costs, according to a study released Tuesday by FarmEcon, LCC. This dramatic change in food affordability is due in large part to booming prices for corn—a key ingredient in animal feed and staple consumer foods—brought on by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).
The study predicts even greater food costs in the year ahead. With the RFS intact and high prices expected for major crops through mid-2013, Americans are likely to see another substantial increase in the food bill.
This increase in food spending is diverting consumer dollars away from discretionary items. Less money flowing into other economic sectors is contributing to the slow rate of improvement in unemployment, job creation and total U.S. income.
Aside from major, unlikely increases in corn production, the study advises, food affordability relief could only be achieved by lowering the ethanol production incentives created by the RFS.
Coming
Together on Ethanol Mandates & Global Food Supply September 12, 2013
When the
environment committee of the EU originally voted to cap biofuels convention, we explained the effects that using food for fuel has on food prices,
food consumption and the world’s poor.On Wednesday, September 11, the full European Parliament voted to reduce crop-based biofuels from 10 to 6 percent of energy consumption in transport by 2020 in order to mitigate the environmental and social impacts of biofuels production. This comes in the wake of research from the Joint Research Centre, the United Nations and Plos One that stress biofuels’ harmful impacts.
According to the EU’s own research, if biofuels received no EU policy support, the price of food stuffs would be 50 percent lower in Europe by 2020 than it is now, and a remarkable 15 percent lower around the world. New research suggests that there won’t be enough food to feed the world by 2050, in large part because of the diversion of land away from food growth to fuel production.
And hunger isn’t the only consequence. As countries continue to prioritize gas tanks over stomachs, food insecurity is causing outrage and instability. Food price spikes between 2007 and 2008 have been directly linked to more than 60 food riots in 30 countries, according to research completed by the New England Complex Systems Institute.
Europe gets it: biofuels policies are outdated and counterproductive. The ethanol mandate is working against its intended goals, helping only corn farmers and leaving the rest of the world to struggle with unintended consequences.
Demand change to this failing policy from our Congress.
Comments
Ethanol destroys engine parts and should
never have been approved. Don’t make it mandatory for US motorists. The EU
ended ethanol in 2013.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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