Maize Fueled World

Maize is another word for corn. Over the summer I read a book by Michael Pollan titled Omnivore’s Dilemma, which talked about various ways that we consume corn and how corns are used. From this book I leaned that corn was main part of Mayan people’s diet for very long time, and corn is still one of main diets in America.  In one of the various ways that we use corn, we began using corn as diet for cars. So, why do we use corn to run cars? It has to do with two problems with fossil fuels that we face today. First of all, the oil prices are increasing because we are running out of fossil fuels that took millions of years to make naturally. Secondly, the growing problem with global warming is caused by carbon dioxide emission produced by cars. This is where biofuel solves both of these problems, and making itself even more demanding in today’s society than last couple of decades. Biofuels can solve the first problem by simply growing more crops to replace more fuel, unlike limited amount of fossil fuels that take millions of years to make. Also, since plants use carbon dioxide to grow, they can absorb the carbon dioxide produced from cars to make more fuel. Biofuel from corns seems reasonable in many ways.

So, what’s the big deal about burning corns to run vehicles?

“One of the key causes of the rise in food prices, which (vastly compounded by speculation) triggered the food crisis, was also fundamentally a reflection of global inequality. Even with increased public subsidies, the shift to biofuels in the United States and the EU was only feasible because people with cars in the developed world can afford to pay far more to drive a few more miles than poor people in the developing world can afford to meet their most basic nutritional needs.”

The quote above caught my eye when I was reading Global Health Watch 3. Initially, I thought it was interesting that in amidst of current food crisis in some parts of the world, here in America, we burn our food to feed hungry cars, not hungry people. Then I realized that this quote relates to the collection of problems and cacophony of voices that we discussed in the lecture. The food crisis is affected by the rising food prices that are too high for people in poor countries to afford while people in more powerful countries. Also, the crisis arises from the fact that different countries have different problems and culture. More developed countries are more focused on finding new sources to fuel their vehicles, because starvation is not the biggest problem in their country compared to countries in Africa or Southern Asia. Food crisis is not simply caused by shortage of food around the world, but it is impacted financially, politically, environmentally, and culturally.

“For example, some studies evaluated the effect of biofuels on retail food prices in the United States rather than on wholesale crop prices worldwide. Not surprisingly, they found little impact. The price of corn in your corn flakes and other retail products is so small that even a tripling of crop prices has little effect at U.S. grocery stores. But the world's poor do not eat processed, packaged corn flakes; they spend more than half of their incomes on staples such as corn meal.” --- Tim Searchinger

As I was searching about biofuels and food crisis, this article by Tim Searchinger published in The Washington Post caught my attention. The quote by Searchinger also talks about the impact of biofuels on the food prices, I thought Searching’s quote viewed the effect of biofuel at a local point of view compared to the first quote which focused on national point of view of the of food crisis and biofuel. Now shifting our focus to local point of view, I realized not many Americans would notice the change in food prices when they are at a grocery store, and how little those prices would impact their daily lives. Meanwhile, the increase in food prices for people in very poor countries would be much more dramatic compared to Americans. The decision to increase biofuel production and, therefore, increasing the food prices worldwide would cause different outcomes for lives of people in different countries. Certainly, we can’t satisfy both sides of the world. However, I think to find a middle ground for both sides it would help if more people knew about the outcomes for the other side.

I chose this cartoon to reflect the context of both quotes above. From a first glance, the cartoon above shows an American man telling two hungry looking men from Africa and Southern Asia that he used the corns to fuel his car because it was more environmentally friendly. In my point of view, I saw a well-clothed American man looking healthier than other two in the cartoon as a figure of American government and Americans themselves. He is drawn at the center of the image, and looks bigger than the other two. The other two people are small and skinny figures off to the side of the image looking depressed. To me it seems as the man is pumping corn fuel into his ‘Go Green’ car he is neglecting the problems of the other two by saying biofuel is saving the planet as an excuse for his decisions, whether or not biofuel is really effective in “saving the planet”.

The problems of biofuel use and food crisis cannot be easily settled until new technology develops to give us new cheap source of fuel that is environmentally safe. As I looked more into the biofuel issue, I realized the problems at both national and local point of view, and the issue is involved economically, politically, and culturally. Global health problems are not one-dimensional. It is a problem that everyone faces at different angles and views.

Citations

Global Health Watch 3: An Alternative World Health Report (2011).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/10/AR2011021006323.html

http://www.globaldashboard.org/2011/05/13/the-g20-gets-interesting-on-biofuels-and-food-security/