Global Food Chain Stretched to the Limit

Research Topics:

Weather throughout the last year
Global food supply
Food riots three years ago
Tunisia
Tunisia's president fleeing country
Food riots in North Africa
Food riots in Haiti, Kenya, and Somalia
"Supply/demand" structures
Hot, dry weather in South America/cut in soy bean production
Flooding in Australia/wheat crops
Higher oil prices-shipping-ethanol production



Chosen Topics

"Conley estimates that more than a third of the corn produced in the U.S is now used to make ethanol."

Article One

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2010/jan/22/us-corn-production-biofuel-ethanol



The author argues with factual data that in fact one forth of the US's production of corn is used to create Enthanol. And his interest lies in the want to inform that this was instated by President Goerge Bush , and that it is impacting the world food supply. The author was not bias becuase he displayed pure fact and data sheets. My question is that since this data was collected in 2009, what is the percentage of corn used today for the creation of ethanol and how is that in relation to the production of corn that is used to feed poeple?



Article Two

http://healthandenergy.com/ethanol.htm



The author of this article argues that the space needed to produce the corn used for ethanol is the same space that could be used to produce corn for several poeple to live off of for a year. The main idea of the article lies in the explanation of this idea said by David Pemental, an argraculturist at Cornell University, "It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol produces". I'm not sure if this is necessarily bias because it displays pur facts but the facts are displayed in a way that has a negative effect upon the reader. The question I a have after reading this article is that if the end result does not outway the production cost then why does the US still do it?



"This month's flooding in Australia wiped out much of that country's wheat crop."

Pictures: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/01/australian_flooding.html

Article One

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-19/flood-destruction-in-australia-may-propel-wheat-crop-to-record.html



The aurthor tries to demonstrate that the destruction caused by the recent rains could actually create a record wheat growing season in the year to come. The main idea of this article is that when flooding has swept through the remaining areas that had previously been parched, left huge amounts of water for irragation in dams, and saturated soil for the coming year that Australia could become one of the top four producers of wheat.