The ethanol industry has a thorn in its side about those darn critics who just can’t get past the role of taxpayer funded ethanol incentives in helping to drive food price volatility. They are fed up that we can’t put aside the reality that biofuels incentives make life harder on the more than 2.5 billion […]

The ethanol industry has a thorn in its side about those darn critics who just can’t get past the role of taxpayer funded ethanol incentives in helping to drive food price volatility. They are fed up that we can’t put aside the reality that biofuels incentives make life harder on the more than 2.5 billion people who live on less than $2 per day. So in their latest appeal to the hearts and minds of consumers still reeling from record high food prices, the Renewable Fuels Association blasted out a report stating that one byproduct of Ethanol production is providing enough livestock feed to make the equivalent of 50 billion quarter pounders per year. This is enough for every man woman and child on this earth to get about 7 scrumptiously beefy burgers every 365 days.

Leaving aside for a minute the substance of their report, does this in any way advance their cause? Let’s put this in perspective. The insatiable drive to produce biofuels, egged-on in no small part by billions of dollars in taxpayer funded incentives to the ethanol industry, has helped drive food prices sky-high, which have in turn sent at least 44 million people into poverty this year alone. These high prices have helped contribute to instability from Yemen to Mozambique and helped to put decades of progress in fighting hunger and poverty at peril. Increased greenhouse gas emissions stemming from biofuels production have further contributed to climate change, which itself significantly dampens global food production, drives food prices higher and undermines food security in the developing world. But in return, poor people, many of whom cannot afford a single hamburger let alone seven, should take comfort in knowing that somebody somewhere is enjoying an extra BigMac once every 7 ½ weeks in their honor.

Helpful.