Today I want to talk about a big controversy that has been going on while we attempt to reduce the gas emissions and instead we are using more agriculture-based biofuels. These "solutions" are now creating food shortages, increasing prices and turning into a potential crisis in countries like my - oh so missed - Mexico.

I was reading a report about this situation in Mexico and the beginning of it was when they tried to increase the price of the tortilla some years ago. For Mexicans, tortilla represents everything, and is not only because we want to preserve Mexico's biggest icon "tacos" but because it's the kind of food that support millions of families, most of them from very poor areas in my country. So what's with the big demanding of corn? The main reason for the increase on the price comes while the United States is moving to try new and sustainable ways to get their biggest addiction, which is fuel. Three big plants that will work turning corn into ethanol are being built in Sinaloa, Mexico and will start working on May, but there will be 13 more all over the country and all the ethanol is planned to be sell mostly to USA, Asia and some other countries.

So maybe this may sound great cause these big ethanol plants are totally sustainable and environmental friendly, and business will increase in the country with this big investment. But Mexico and mainly Sinaloa, which is the state that has the biggest production of corn and where these plants are being built, won't have enough corn to support the plants and the big demand corn has from Mexicans to feed themselves. Farmers will benefit because their corn will have a higher price but the rest of the people won't be able to afford a higher price on the food.

I read also that ethanol produced with corn almost takes more energy to produce and harvest the corn than the energy it displaces from fossil fuel, for example 50 years from now in Argentina (where something similar as Mexico is happening) it is calculated that 12.5 millions of hectares that are producing right now won't produce anything due to the excess of soil exploitation. To me it all seems that Felipe Calderon, the current president, is selling Mexican resources to benefit the economy and left the people to handle their own economy as they can.

Apparently, gasoline prices are going to be reduced in Mexico, especially if people start using diesel and fuel efficient cars, but how many Mexicans will benefit from this? Not the majority, and not the poor ones and that won't even think on getting a car won't have what they need to feed. Anyways, there was an idea of doing the same thing but instead of corn with sugar cane, its not a possibility since the laws are all contradicted to each other and the easiest solution was turning their eyes to corn. I want to share this report with you, and this time it's in English so I hope whoever its interested will watch it, and happy earth day to everyone!

Link: http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/fellows/mexico_2008/