Entirely predictable

[wombat_socho]

As more corn gets diverted to ethanol production, the price of food goes up. Lower production of wheat, soybeans, and rice isn't helping. Time to repeal the import tariff on Brazilian ethanol, methinks. (Maggie's Farm)

Related: Possible replacement of corn by cellulosic biomass. (We didn't need those trees and grass clippings anyway.)
Purdue economists regard the new corn boom as a mixed blessing for rural Indiana.

Comments

[willow-one.livejournal.com]

Or change the way sugar tariff laws work.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

In the long term either one would work, but in the short term it makes more sense to lower or eliminate the tariff on ethanol. Brazil has a massive ethanol industry based on sugarcane processing and could start shipping ethanol to both coasts tomorrow if a tariff change made that profitable; we don't have that infrastructure yet, but importing more sugar cane from the Caribbean and elsewhere would be a Good Thing.