What is going on in this country with the price of food?

I remember a chemistry teacher telling me that if we could convert hydrocarbons into carbohydrates we could feed the world. In a way this is exactly what modern farming does. Petroleum powered tractors and combines allow farmers to work far more land than anyone would have imagined generations ago. Petroleum derived synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers have greatly increased the yeilds of farmland. The ability to transport produce hundreds or thousands of miles allows huge farms and food processing plants to lower the cost of food through economy of scale.

Our cheap food depends on cheap petroleum. Petroleum prices have shot up because worldwide demand has greatly increased. Demand does not account for all of the increase in the price of oil; part of it is the weakness of the dollar. The US dollar value has plumeted compared to other world currencies.

The ethanol boondogle has also increased the price of food. Corn becomes high fructose corn syrup to sweeten our soda and foods. Corn feeds our livestock so most of the meat, foul, and farm raised seafood we eat starts out as corn. Corn is chemically seperated into constituents and food additives that are recombined to make new foods. While our government still gives huge subsidies to corn growers the demand of corn for ethanol will continue to drive the price of food up. As I understand it, it takes about a gallon of petroleum to make 1.25 gallons of ethanol (and that is the most optimistic estimate I’ve seen) so ethanol from corn will never make us energy independant.

Expect the price of food to continue to rise. As Americans we have been spoiled by cheap food. As food prices rise we will spend more and more of our money on food and have less for other luxuries. In other words our standard of living will decline.