How the Global Food Crisis Affects National Security

As the need to find alternative energy sources to fossil fuels, especially foreign oil supplies from ideological opposite countries, bio-fuels appear to fill a partial void for achieving this. Bio-fuels are produced from living organisms such as maize (corn) or wheat. There are cheaper sources like switch-grass, straw, and plant waste for producing bio-fuels, but corn and wheat have become popular in developed countries as a cash crop for farmers who have been struggling over the years.

In 2005-2007 the production of these two organic food sources sky-rocketed for use as a bio-fuel in vehicles as ethanol in its pure form or as an additive in regular gasoline. Data shows that global consumption for corn and wheat was up some 60%. The following 2-year period saw prices for these two cereals grains alone jump to a whopping average of 93%. It became clear that this was primarily due from the demand to produce bio-fuels and serve as animal feed for agribusinesses. Where this turns out to be a good thing for farmers in more advanced nations, poorer nations were unable to compete and were forced to pay high prices if they did.

Unable to afford these higher costs, countries like Africa were and still are unable to meet nutritional needs to sustain good health. According to USAID sources "Approximately 1 billion people-or one sixth of the world's population-subsist on less than $1 per day. Of this population, 162 million survive on less than $0.50 per day" (USAID Responds to Global Food Crisis, 5/22/09). Sadly these high food costs are often the result of governmental policies that artificially elevate the price of farm goods like maize and wheat through price supports.

Stefan Tangermann, Director for Trade and Agriculture at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) informs us that North America and European farmers and bio-fuel manufacturers would not be able to produce bio-fuels without the aid "of government support through subsidies, tax breaks, tariffs, and use mandates." To meet the needs of ethanol producers, developed countries like the U.S. and the EU are actually creating a crisis in poorer nations that their financial arms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have to go in and alleviate; at insufficient rates. It appears to be a case of the right hand ignoring what the left hand is doing.

The Countries within the OECD consist of 31 members, all but three - Japan, Korea and Turkey -are the wealthiest Western Nations, including the U.S. These countries spend more on farm subsidies similar to those that support production of bio-fuels than they do to assist countries who are adversely affected by these policies. According to their own website, OECD countries spent $280 billion annually on farm subsidies in their own countries while supplying less than a one-third of that ($80 billion) for developing countries in 2004. In the U.S. these bio-fuel subsidies are paid to the tune of 51 cents per gallon of gas for every American who fills up their tank.

What makes this maddening is that there are cheaper sources of bio-fuels from countries like Brazil who are self -sustaining in terms of producing sugar cane that serve their bio-fuel needs. They do not need to take another country's maize or wheat to produce their ethanol, thus preventing any negative impact on world food prices or shortages. Similarly, algae used for ethanol production can be produced at greater and cheaper quantities than what it takes to process the bio-fuel from corn and wheat.

One entrepreneur, Glen Kertz outside of Albuquerque, N.M., uses "pond scum" to produce 100 thousand gallons of algae oil per acre per year. Corn in comparison can only produce 20-30 gallons per acre per year. Mr. Kertz feels that if only10% of the state of New Mexico were used to produce his algae as a bio-fuel source that they would be able handle "all of the transportation needs for the U.S." This may be over-optimistic but clearly this research has been proven to be applicable. If farm subsidies that support the bio-fuel industry were transferred to algae oil production, the food crisis issue would diminish substantially.

Further apparent insanity about maize and wheat's popularity as a source for bio-fuels is the costs it takes to actually process these grains to extract ethanol used as fuel or fuel additives. Cheaper agricultural products like sugar cane could be used in place of corn and wheat and the net energy gains would be exceedingly greater. "For each unit of energy expended to turn cane into ethanol, 8.3 times as much energy is created, compared with a maximum of 1.3 times for corn. In addition, increasingly sophisticated Brazilian producers have found ways to process sugar without the use of fossil fuels, adding to ethanol's positive environmental contribution." (With Big Boost From Sugar Cane, Brazil Is Satisfying Its Fuel Needs, by Larry Rother, 4/10/06)

The special interests of large corporate agribusinesses and the accommodating governmental policy for subsidies of wealthier nations have demonstrated to other regions of the world that national security interests trump global hunger and poverty. Yet, as this information becomes more widespread within developing countries who suffer the consequences of these practices, national security for developed nations is more likely to be threatened. Terrorist havens flourish in poorer countries where the real enemies of the indigent populations are not murderous groups like al-Qaeda, but the wealthier nations, especially the dominant presence of the U.S., who are viewed as a source of their poverty and their growing hunger.

RESOURCES:

Source of OECD's Stefan Tangermann's comments

OECD fact sheet
USAID Responds to Global Food Crisis

2007-2008 world food price crisis