By Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Almost a third of the U.S. grain crop next year may be diverted from the family dinner table to the family car as fuel, putting upward pressure on food prices, a leading expert warned on Tuesday.
Grain prices are near record levels as the United States produces more ethanol, now made mostly from corn, to blend with gasoline and stretch available motor fuel supplies.
Farmers, hoping to cash in, are expected to grow 30 percent of next year's grain crop for ethanol use as more refineries that process corn into fuel come online, according to Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute and long-time critic of using food grains for fuel.
"The price of grain is now tied to the price of oil," Brown said at the Reuters Global Agriculture and Biofuel Summit.
As a result, he said, prices will go up for poultry, beef and pork as well as dairy products because corn is the number one animal feed for farmers.
"Our refrigerators are stuffed with corn," Brown said. For example, feed prices make up about 40 percent of the cost of poultry alone, he said.
The pressure on food prices from ethanol will only get worse as the new energy law passed last month requires U.S. ethanol production to soar from about 9 billion gallons this year to 36 billion gallons by 2022.
"What we see are cars beginning to compete with people for world grain supplies," Brown said. "We could see a consumer revolt in this country." Continued...
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