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Originally Posted by Schmitti  The whole idea of increasing crop yields has allowed for a reduction in farms and farm area and I seriously think this is coming back to bite us in the ***. |
This specific issue is the main problem, though it is very complex.
For 50 years, there has been a very destruction "Farming cycle".
Basically, everyone knows farming is a hard business. The only way for a farmer to make more money is to plant more food.
So if a farmer has 1000 acres of corn, 2000 acres will double the profit? That business plan works until the market no longer needs more corn. That point hit about 50 years ago. Suddenly there was an excess of corn.
The excess drove corn prices down. Farmers had no alternative but to plant more corn, which drove prices down even further. The entire US agriculture was in complete disaster in the 1960s, so the government started massive substidies for farmers, so they can survive.
The cycle itself still continued. Farms got larger and larger. The prices of corn (and wheat) dropped even further. With corn so cheap, the market found other uses. Like replacing cane sugar with corn sugar. Hydrogenated corn oils. Corn flour, etc.
Politicians from corn states have seen these cycle out of control. By the 90s, farms across the midwest were on the verse of collapse. When the price of oil went up, they all pushed EXTREMELY HARD for special substidies for biofuels.
EVERYONE knew it would destroy the food market. It was not a secret. everyone also knew that corn biofuel was not viable. It takes more energy to make, then it gives. And there is not enough land. But the corrupt politicians from those states wanted the money, and stay in office.
I had hoped that this corn biofuel mess was just a stepping poing to getting biofuel from trees, and garbage waste. That seems far more workable. But its been 10 years, and the technology simply has not appeared.
nick