Food vs. fuel?

According to this article “Food vs. fuel?; Institute sounds warning that producing more ethanol will harm world’s corn market”, the author suggests different opinions of two experts. One of these two experts, Lester Brown who is the president of the Earth Policy Institute, states that producing ethanol as an alternative oil creates a competition between 800 million people who have vehicles and the 2 billion poorest people who are spending more than 50% of their salaries on food. Moreover, he says that the requirement of the whole world for ethanol is absolutely greedy. The other expert, Brian Jennings who is executive vice president for the American Coalition for Ethanol, argues that Brown’s worries are unnecessary. Also, he asserts that we won’t have the phenomenon of shortage of food. In conclusion, the author wants people living in this world to be concerned about the issue of ethanol.

Apparently, using ethanol as fuel has created chaos around the world. Although we can substitute ethanol for oil to decrease consumption of fuel temporarily, it also produces a lot of problems we need to face soon. There is not only the problem of food crisis but also the problem of the world’s economics. Therefore, the author worried about the reality of this world.

Firstly, ethanol is primarily made from corn through a series of chemical process. And corn plays an important role in most people’s food supply. Also, the human population keeps growing in this modern society. In ”Environment: Problems and Solutions”, the author discusses the fact that “There are more births than deaths happening in this world”(Miller, 1994, p.20). It means more people need more food to survive. However, if we keep using corn to produce ethanol, it will make many people have no food to eat. So, we need to reconsider whether using corn to make ethanol is a good way.

Secondly, using corn to produce ethanol has been a huge impact on our economy. It is not only a food resource but also made of ethanol. In “Biofuels blamed for food price crisis” the author wrote “The use of corn for ethanol has consumed more than 75 percent of the increase in global corn production over the past three years.” It means demand and supply of corn is imbalanced. Due to this reason, the price of corn is getting higher and higher. So, the poor are poorer and poorer, and we really have to pay attention on this issue.

Lastly, as demands on alternative energy increase, the manufacturers of ethanol will try to produce more ethanol to make big money as soon as possible. So, how can we be so sure that these businessmen will have consciousness to control their output of ethanol?

On the other hand, although famers can try to grow more corn to supply production of ethanol, rising demands for corn means more land which could have a significant side-effect on the environment. Don’t we make a big effort to advocate protecting our environment? This way, I think using ethanol will accelerate destruction of our environment more quickly.

In consequence, we should not apply ethanol as an alternative because it would cause food shortage, an impact on the economy and damage to the environment. Hence, anyone living in this global village should be more concerned about this reality to reconsider its feasibility.

References
Miller, G. T., Jr. (1994). Environment: Problems and Solutions. Belmont,CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Truini, J. (2007, January 7). Food vs. Fuel? ; Institute sounds warning that producing more ethanol will harm world’s corn market. Waste News. Retrieved July 8, 2008, from LexisNexis.