Also, In the Latest Headlines...

The price of corn its affect on the food prices in general?

Corn is used in many things we eat today. Many do not know how pervasive corn has become in our diet. In fact Americans consume nearly 42 pounds of high fructose corn syrup every year. Give yourself a little test as you go through your day tomorrow. Everything that you choose to put in your mouth, read the label for a change. I’ll bet that when it’s all tallied up, you can expect corn to have been in about 80 percent of your total daily intake. Remember now, that high fructose corn syrup counts. It also counts if you eat most brands of beef or chicken. Yes, our nation feeds it’s livestock with heavy portions of corn. This in fact makes the meat more fatty but I won’t discuss the relative effect of fatty foods on energy.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/50-ways-to-improve-your-life/2007/12/17/health-reasons-to-cut-back-on-corn-consumption.html

So, corn is in found all throughout our food supply. Now, we are seeing that politicians are farmers alike are requesting to increase corn production for the purposes of making ethanol. Yet, corn is not nearly in great enough supply. This produces two competing markets for each bushel of corn. On the one hand, the newly booming ethanol business is demanding more production, while the other hand, the food industry is competing for each bushel as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/opinion/07krugman.html?hp

The ethanol wants corn only for one thing…ethanol. The food industry needs the corn for many different reasons. Other than the direct food needs, corn is necessary to produce secondary items such as some jellies and even peanut butter. Also, since corn is used to feed livestock, it is easy to see how the whole food industry may be affected. As the overhead goes up to maintain corn based food products, there must be an increase in price to keep up the industry.

This is a trend that we may expect for some time. Of course, all eyes are on China as the new emerging industry giant. The biofuel industry in China expects greatly increased funding. Also, the Inter-American Development Bank is planning to invest about three million into biofuels

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080406005022&newsLang=en

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/americas/2008/04/07/150789/Environmentalists-urge.htm

Therefore, as the promotion and supply of the ethanol industry increases, so will the price of food.