The end of cheap food?

[Kidlicious]

Re: Swithgrass

[Disregard this post if you like. There's a more recent study that confirms the claim in Scientific American.]

http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers...hanol.2005.pdf

However, converting switchgrass into ethanol results
in a negative energy return (Table 4). The negative
energy return is 50% or slightly higher than the
negative energy return for corn ethanol production

[Wezil]

The solution isn't to put additives into gasoline - it is to get off the gas addicition entirely. Additives are just bandaids on the problem.

[Blake]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk

Their goal, according to ORNL physiologist Sandy McLaughlin...

McLaughlin?

[Aeson]

I would like to know who's telling the truth... cause there are claims that switchgrass ethanol production results in 540% more energy than it takes to grow/refining it.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2206559

Annual biomass yields of established fields averaged 5.2 -11.1 Mg·ha−1 with a resulting average estimated net energy yield (NEY) of 60 GJ·ha−1·y−1. Switchgrass produced 540% more renewable than nonrenewable energy consumed.

If this is right, then it would explain (at least part of) the difference:

A previous study (14) reported a negative energy balance for ethanol derived from switchgrass by assuming that high levels of agricultural inputs (Fig. 2) would be required, and that nonrenewable energy would be needed to generate power for a cellulosic ethanol biorefinery. Feasibility research indicates that the lignaceous portion of plant biomass remaining after saccrification and fermentation can be used to power the cellulosic ethanol biorefinery and potentially could be used to generate additional electricity to sell to the electrical grid as a byproduct (16–18).

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Kidicious


You seem to either be in the wrong thread or arguing with an imaginary person.

You are the one who asked me the original question that was a non sequitur. I haven't asked you a single question other than for a clarification of why you were asking me a stupid question or making a pointless response.

Of course, I accept the argument that you are figment of imagination.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by snoopy369
I'm sorry, I meant the sort of subsidies I thought we were discussing (and I probably should have read further up). The subsidies I'm talking about are the 'burn crop' subsidies the US uses to keep prices for certain key goods (mostly grains, iirc) higher.

And don't forget the subsidies like paying farmers to not farm in order to keep farmers afloat but to restrict production in order to raise the price of farm goods.

[Dinner]

Farmers react to food price rises
By Jeremy Cooke
Rural Affairs Editor, BBC News

As part of the BBC's cost of food day, two farmers explain how rising food prices are affecting them.

Ed Buscall is a happy man. The wheat he grows on his huge arable farm in Norfolk has become a commodity in short supply.

And that means the price of his produce is rising dramatically.

Two years ago wheat was selling for about £70 a tonne. Today that figure has soared to £188 a tonne.

Mr Buscall and other farmers across the UK are trying to supply a seemingly ever-increasing demand.

He says that, as farmers grow more wheat, they will produce less of other crops, and that means the price of those other crops will rise as well.

Global forces

"Certainly we are looking to grow 10% to 20% more wheat next year," he says.

And there's every reason to think that those high prices are here to stay. Mr Buscall knows that his corner of eastern England is open to global economic forces.

The cost of feed is going up and up and up
Neville Kemp
He says there are many factors driving the increase in wheat prices.

They include growing demand in India and China, the production of biofuels in the US at the expense of food production, and climate change which can mean crop failures.

"Certainly a drought in Australia (for instance) will have a big impact on us here.

"And I look at the predictions on climate change and suchlike for the future and I think, well the money could be there for some years to come if there continues to be bad weather events around the world as is predicted.

"The price of wheat will go up and may even go higher."

Dramatic rise

A short distance across Norfolk from Mr Buscall's arable farm, another farmer is having a very different experience.

Neville Kemp produces hundreds of Aberdeen Angus beef cattle every year.

As well as grass and hay, he also feeds grain to fatten them for market.

His costs have risen so dramatically that, he says, unless consumers pay up to 50% more for his produce he may go out of business.

Put simply, some of his stock may have to be destroyed before they are ready to be sold for beef.

"I don't know whether these calves will ever reach maturity because the cost of feed is going up and up and up.

"Grassland is being ploughed up to make way for wheat."

It all means that consumers are paying more for food. And not just food which is produced directly from wheat.

Economists are warning that we must get used to these new higher prices. The era of cheap food, they warn, is over.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7288460.stm