[Sca-cooks] Current farm prices and affects on feast budgeting
Stefan li Rous
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
Sat Feb 16 17:46:10 PST 2008
David Friedman suggested:
<<<
> The price of fuel oil increases the costs through running farm
> equipment,
transportation, and utility costs of market places.
My guess is that the major reason for increased cost of grains is the
increasing use of biofuels, which compete for the same agricultural
inputs. >>>
That is my opinion as well. However, it isn't as straight forward as
your comment implies. I think that these other food crops, wheat and
other grains, are going up in price not because they are used to
manufacture biofuels, but because farmers are deciding to grow corn
(maize) to sell to biofuel producers rather than to grow wheat or
other grains to sell to food processors.
Unfortunately the use of biofuels also seems to be increasing the CO2
problem not reducing it, as people cut and clear forests and other
areas to increase the production of sugar cane and corn used to make
biofuels. There has always been some controversy about whether the
production of corn for fuel was costing more resources than it
created. My opinion has always been that we should be developing our
abilities to use cellulose conversion, which would allow use to use
agricultural waste and plants like fast growing sawgrass, rather than
food crops. Unfortunately even the use of cellulose processing could
still be a problem, by clearing off forest and other areas, if we
aren't careful.
Mark
(Stefan considers the Forests to be an inexhaustible resource, except
for the ones the King has taken)
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous Barony of Bryn Gwlad Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris Austin, Texas
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at: http://www.florilegium.org ****
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