Good for the Herald: the editorial board published an opinion about the problem of growing crops for fuel that I blogged about, the other day.

There is a local context to the food for fuel problem: land use.

It is highly likely that food inflation related to scarcity because of climate change is here, now. The New York Times pointed out yesterday in its front page story, the worst drought in Australia’s history has severely damaged agricultural output; especially rice.

Global warming will make extreme variability of food production–and high prices–a terrible fact of life.

In other words, the day is coming when Florida will have to locally produce the food it consumes. It is not going to happen tomorrow, or even next year: but we have to start planning for that day.

Next week, on April 22nd, the Miami Dade Climate Change Advisory Task Force is making its recommendations to the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners. Dr. Harold Wanless, chair of the Science Committee, will make a presentation whose conclusions were reinforced, just two days ago, by a published report: “Sea levels ‘will rise 1.5 metres by 2100″.

“Melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warming water could lift sea levels by as much as 1.5 metres by the end of this century, displacing tens of millions of people. That’s the conclusion of a new prediction of sea level rises that for the first time takes into account ice dynamics.” (April 16, 2008, New Scientist).

Yesterday in The Miami Herald, Florida Agricultural Commissioner Charles Bronson made the case for purchase of development rights (that Miami-Dade county farmers and land speculators resisted tooth and nail, while the housing markets were strong).

On April 24th, the County Commission will be taking its final vote on applications to move the Urban Development Boundary– applications that the State of Florida has determined are inconsistent with state policy. Will the same cynical politics prevail at County Hall, requiring even more lawsuits for the county to do what is required by law?

We need to stop the conversion of empty space and farmland to tract housing, including zoning changes that make more tract housing inevitable: Miami-Dade will need this land for food production much more in the future than it ever has in the past, because of endemic crop disruptions.

Land use and climate change–this is a topic The Miami Herald editorial board should put in focus before the time comes to ask taxpayers to fund a sea wall around 1 Herald Plaza and the rest of downtown.

Read below for the text of the Herald editorial.

Posted on Fri, Apr. 18, 2008
Using food for fuel disrupts food supply

Given the current global food crisis, decisions by the United States, Europe and other countries to convert corn and other food crops into fuel are beginning to look like good intentions gone awry. The biofuels push is beginning to have harmful unintended consequences, contributing to shortages of basic foods in Haiti, Egypt, Italy and countries in Africa and Southeastern Asia. The European Union is reconsidering its goal of using biofuels in 10 percent of its transportation fuels — and the U.S. Congress should do the same.
High production costs

To help Midwestern farmers, Congress passed and energy bill last year that requires a five-fold increase in the use of ethanol and other nonfossil fuels by 2022. Achieving that goal would be hard enough just considering the high cost of producing ethanol. Expensive pipelines have to be built to deliver the fuel to coastal states. And biofuels are even less appealing now in light of their role in the worldwide food crisis.

Many factors have contributed to food shortages, including the recent drought, record-high prices for oil, high demand for meat in developing countries and, of course, the push of biofuels in the United States and Europe. Biofuels aren’t the primary cause, but they are a significant factor. They are estimated to account for 25 percent to 30 percent of the price increase in world food prices, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute, an agricultural consulting group in Washington, D.C.

Giving farmers subsidies and other incentives for corn and other crops to make fuel seemed like a good idea. It could lessen our reliance on foreign oil and ease concerns about seemingly never-ending increases in the cost of gas. President Bush touted the policy in his State of the Union message last year, and all of the presidential candidates made support of biofuels a major talking point when they campaigned in Iowa and other Midwestern states.

More subsidies

Nevertheless, there are serious drawbacks to biofuels, especially corn. A recent report in The New York Times said that a fifth of America’s corn crop is used to make ethanol. The energy bill added even more subsidies and incentives for corn production and, as a result, more U.S. farms have switched to corn production instead of other crops, like soybeans, for example.

This caused prices to rise for soybeans, which, in turn, contributed to the worldwide shortage of vegetable oil. Other farmers complained about the high cost of feed for their livestock; and grocers were hit with sharp price increases. The ripple effect is global.

Congress can’t do much about bad weather, the cost of oil or the rising demand for meat. But it can reverse its mandate to use food crops for fuel.

© 2008 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com