The other F-word

OPINION:

Russia’s military machine is grinding Ukraine into dust, but far beyond the ongoing conflict, conditions are spreading for dire suffering. Pocked by Russian bombs, Ukraine can longer be counted on to serve as the “breadbasket of Europe.” Echoing is talk of the F-word — famine. If the United States is to help avert hunger, the nation should devote more cropland to food rather than fuel.

Red flags are already signaling the likelihood of war-induced famine. “[As] hunger threatens Ukraine directly, the fallout from this war will spread across the globe, says World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley. “Russia and Ukraine together export about 30 percent of the world’s wheat.” A sudden drop-off of the Ukrainian portion of the world’s dominant food crop portends a year of “catastrophic hunger,” according to WFP reckoning, with 44 million people threatened with starvation in 38 nations.

Economic sanctions imposed on Russia have further disrupted grain shipments, and nearly 30 million tons of wheat and maize meant for the Middle East and Africa have been halted, says the WFP.

Unrelated to the current clash in Europe, American farms have undergone their own wheat production decline in recent years, falling from a peak of 48,181 metric tons in 1981 to 22,453 in 2021. Why? Farmers have converted wheat acreage to corn, the primary source of ethanol for fuel. Fields devoted to corn have expanded from 60 million acres in the early ’80s to more than 90 million acres. “Much of this growth in area and production is a result of expanding ethanol production, which now accounts for nearly 40% of total corn use,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Largely responsible for crop swap is the Renewable Fuel Standard enacted by Congress in 2005, mandating the addition of ethanol to gasoline as a means of reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Government-generated demand for mountains of kernels has rewarded farmers with corn prices that have soared since inception from $2 a bushel to more than $7.50 currently. It has resulted in a 10-fold increase in ethanol production to 15 billion gallons.

The presumed environmental benefits have been surprisingly disappointing, though. A paper published in February in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Science found that expanded cultivation of cropland for corn increased the use of fertilizer and the degradation of water quality.

The overall result, write researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “caused enough domestic land-use change emissions such that the carbon intensity of corn ethanol produced under the RFS is no less than gasoline and likely at least 24% higher.” The use of corn ethanol for fuel, then, is failing to achieve its intended purpose of cleaning up carbon emissions.

Famine is the dirtiest word. Rather than ordering American farmers to produce corn-based fuel for thirsty vehicle gas tanks, Uncle Sam should encourage the cultivation of crops for feeding the world’s hungry mouths.