SALON

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 4:26 PM UTC

A margarita made with ethanol

First, the biofuel industry came for my tortillas. But then, my tequila? And my beer? Is the apocalypse nigh?

By

Topics: Globalization, How the World Works, Beer,

OK, now this biofuel thing has gone too far. Reuters is reporting that Mexican farmers are burning down fields of blue agave — the main ingredient in tequila — and replanting them with corn. Meanwhile, in Germany, the Associated Press warns that the price of beer is set to rise, because barley farmers, encouraged by government biofuel subsidies, are switching to rapeseed.

Tortilla price hikes are bad enough. But beer and tequila? How are we supposed to continue anesthetizing ourselves against the daily drumbeat of war, ecological disaster, poverty and injustice?

Maybe China, which has pretended in the past to be the ancestral birthplace of tequila, will pick up the slack.

Or maybe we should take a closer look at both these stories.

Reuters:

Production of agave, from the lily family, soared in recent years as farmers cashed in on record prices brought about by a shortage of the plant at the start of the decade.

Despite rapid growth in tequila drinking, especially overseas, the over-supply of agave has driven prices for the plant to rock-bottom levels.

Many growers have started to abandon the crop in favor of corn, whose price has rocketed in line with massive growth in U.S. demand for ethanol after President Bush outlined targets last year to use the corn-based fuel as a gasoline alternative.

The Associated Press:

Farmers say the brewers share some of the blame.

“For years there was an oversupply and we couldn’t make any profits with barley and that’s why we switched to biofuel crops,” said Anton Stuerzer, 43, who grows barley and rapeseed at his farm in the neighboring village of Hoehenkirchen.

“It serves the brewers right that they have to pay those high prices now — they should have paid us fair prices even when there was too much barley available.”

Not too hard to see the common thread here, huh? Depressed prices for agricultural commodities brought about by overproduction — a problem that has been plaguing farmers, especially in the developing world, for decades.

How the World Works noted just a few weeks ago that Mexican corn farmers, who have long suffered from their inability to compete with subsidized, highly efficient American corn farmers, would no doubt respond to high corn prices by boosting production. That, in turn, could have a long-term positive effect on the Mexican rural economy that might well balance, or even outweigh, the negative social impact of higher food prices. The same story could well be repeated throughout the developing world, where agriculture is responsible for a far greater share of economic activity than it is in the United States or Europe.

It is very easy to make a short-term, facile equation in which biofuel production results in food price hikes and therefore must be bad, bad, bad. But the real key to addressing global hunger is not to keep food prices low, but to make economies rich. Which means the real challenge for government policy-makers is ensuring that the benefits of higher prices for agricultural commodities are actually captured by small farmers and rural communities, and not by corporate agribusinesses. It’s not about food vs. fuel. It’s about equity vs. exploitation.

Andrew Leonard

Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21. More Andrew Leonard.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 21 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
241 points242 points | 15 comments
vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
233 points234 points | 201 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
210 points211 points | 31 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
80 points81 points | 16 comments
vote
Austerity Kills: Brian McArdle, a 57-year-old man who had had two strokes and could barely walk, was found "fit for work" by a government subcontractor, and had his benefits stopped. He died the next day.
60 points61 points | 3 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations