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Food prices continue to increase! what would you rather do! feed people or make bio fules from crops?

In recent weeks, the surge in world wide food prices has brought riots from people protesting about the high price of staple food stuffs. (Rice / wheat / cooking oil etc). Environmentalist groups insist that the food shortages are being caused by the increasing use of farmland once used to grow food crops being switched to growing crops for bio fuels which are supposed to aid the reduction of green house gas c02..

So what comes first - fuel for people or fuel for cars?.

13 Answers

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Human beings are more important than cars. :-)

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    If we grow the crops and give the bounty to the people they will bred more and demand more food until the worlds population outweighs the resources we are capable of producing, you cannot educate these third world country's into free choice birth control so do you like China doe's make it law and start more conflict that way,

    Are our governments encouraging farmers to grow crops for fuel to help keep down the worlds population by making less food available ?

    the western world cannot live without the car, so the fuel has to come from somewhere, and if it means unwanted or unneeded third world adults and children have to suffer because the crops have been diverted for fuel, how many westerners driving to work one in a car could give a dam about the starving ? Orson Wells may have foreseen the future where we have to be controlled to save mankind and planet Earth, less we destroyed it and ourselves.

  • 1 decade ago

    There is many other ways to get ethanol other than from corn. Sugar cane,prarie grass, yard waste & etc. Many ways but, yes I dont agree with getting it from corn. A guy found a way to produce hydrogen for his torch in a welding shop because it was cheaper than the current gas he was using. His machine that produces water into hydrogen is in the works right now of being patented. He has altered his ford escort with an engine to burn the fuel he makes. You can see the video on myspace, its really cool. But there are many other inventions on their way currently. The only question is if they will make it without being bought out by people with other interest?? The problems that face us and other countries will be solved eventually but, its looking like other countries are doing allot more in the field of alternative fuel invention and will beat us to the finish line. We could obtain a fuel for both people and cars if we work together hard enough. General motors had the EV1 that done extremely well but, pulled them off the market. Electric is still a good alternative, even with its short range we have enough solar panels and wind mills to open stations for them most anywhere in the western US. But, that can change to the whole US as well. There are many good ideas, and inventions to come but, we all have to try to do our part to help get them going. One of the wind generators out in Nevada, or Utah, makes enough electricity to power 40,000 homes. Surely they can power many stations to recharge a few electric cars, or to produce hydrogen from water like the guy did at his welding shop. Mythbusters proved that a deisel engine can be ran on used 100%vegetable oil that was filtered, and restaraunts pay to take that hauled away. But, I often wonder if we as a society ever did make our homes self sufficient, and our cars allot more cheaper to run, if the government would take advantage of these savings and charge us more on taxes??

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    First we should have temporary price controls combined with and a few quick studies by economists and other non partisan specialists to determine what is the cause of the rise in food prices and to make recommendation on what we can do about it. Knee jerk reactions, taking the word of opinionated groups and rushes to judgment almost never work.

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    We don't have to choose! Part of the reason that food prices are going up is not the simple fact of biofuels, but WHICH biofuels we choose. Because of the powerful corn lobby in the United States, we've started making corn into ethanol, which is *stupid*. You lose more energy than you gain by doing this!

    Instead of devoting good farmland and food crops to the production of ethanol, we would be better served to either develop cellulosic ethanol from agricultural waste, or other biofuels like oilseed rape.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    That is an easy one: Food should NEVER be burned as fuel that is simple.

    Bio-fuels is a hoax and can not be done. Yes I know Brazil does it but they use sugar can which is better. Corn/ethonol only has 1/2 the BTUs of gas and it takes a gallon of gas to make it anyways. Good thing this is being forced down our throats because the govt got involved good job idiots who pushed this agenda.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    We in the West have to decide whether we continue to consume most of the worlds resources and let the rest starve, or if we become less wasteful and give the rest of the world a look in. As the rest of the world gets more desperate, we'll need to build bigger walls to keep them out and deploy more troops to steal their oil.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Look at Ethiopia they have doubled their population in 20 years based on food aid - it's unsustainable and short sighted.

    So I'm for bio fuel...

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Food, of course. Corn used for ethanol is a bluff. It did not work in the 80's and it will not work today.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    It has to be food for people and not fuel for western decadency...........

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