> Today we have a huge buffer from the large use of grain to feed animals.

This, plus the gigantic amount of agricultural land being used for biofuel production (almost as much as cattle food).

bryanlarsen 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The standard counter-argument is that the corn grown for animal feed and for ethanol production is not suited for human consumption.

But that's only partially true. We wouldn't eat it directly -- it could still be turned into masa or sugar or some other processed food and then eaten.

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reactordev 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The corn grown that’s not for human consumption is only because it’s earmarked for feed or biofuels. Corn is corn. Where I live, 1 in 4 fields is “for human consumption”

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Retric 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Filed corn is harvested at a different time resulting in a dryer product.

But yes if people get hungry enough, field corn easily qualifies as actual food.

	▲	reactordev 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There are 4 types of corn. Dimple/dent corn, pop corn, sweet corn, and flint corn. Each variety can be eaten. Prepared differently of course as they have different starches and flavors but the vast majority of corn fields in the United States grow dent corn for feed and biofuels.

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inigyou 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Aren't there different varieties of corn?

	▲	reactordev 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, and they are all edible. But not all are palatable.

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brazzy 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, we're pretty good at making pretty damn anything "fit for human consumption", including quite a few things that are outright poisonous if consumed unprocessed.

	▲	stymaar an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization (Corn doesn't need special processing to be edible, but it does need special processing if you want to avoid dying from nutritional deficiency when having a corn-based diet).

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throwaway27448 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Who ever thought the idea of biofuel was a good one? Is it just as much a blatant jobs program as it seems?

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pfdietz 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's the result of politics, and that's not always pretty.

	▲	throwaway27448 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		What isn't the result of politics? This is a bad explanation—how is there so little will to act in rational self interest?

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stymaar an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> is it just as much a blatant jobs program as it seems?

It's not a “job program” per se (these crops require basically no human work to do nowadays) but it's indeed a subvention program for farmers (and more importantly, land owners).

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mrguyorama 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

While Bush Jr was definitely doing it to give yet another handout to corn growers, it solved a real problem.

After we phased out TetraEthyl Lead from gas, we still needed an octane booster, because for gas to be cheap, it uses low octane components. So we used something called MTBE. The problem is that your average corner gas store has terrible infrastructure, and their gas tank leaks a lot. MTBE kept getting into water sources and hurting people.

Ethanol is a good octane booster, and it doesn't poison anyone or the environment. It also slightly reduced dependence on foreign oil at a time when that was still an issue.

So it's wasteful, not at all "Green", and inefficient, but do we have a replacement octane booster that wont poison people?

It's not at all a jobs program. Corn growing is extremely mechanized. It's done entirely by megacorp megafarms. They are very wealthy companies owned by very wealthy people who continue to vote for republicans exclusively for lower taxes on wealthy people. They don't do it for better policy, as Trump alone has cost that industry over $30 billion in lost sales during his two terms, from poorly run trade wars.

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akiselev 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> So it's wasteful, not at all "Green", and inefficient, but do we have a replacement octane booster that wont poison people?

I'm not sure it's all that wasteful. The waste product from biofuel production is distillers grains [1] which are just fed back to animals afterward for the protein, fiber, and fat content.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains

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stymaar an hour ago | parent [-]

It's wasteful in the sense that we are exploiting lots of land for the limited value it brings.

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akiselev an hour ago | parent [-]

The vast majority is grown on marginal land, just above pasture. They can't grow better crops without massive works of engineering and tons more fertilizer and energy use. The alternative is to just use slightly less of that land, because the animals are going to have to replace that feed from somewhere. Distillers grains are valuable because the fat and protein are used for finishing cattle for human consumption in feedlots so the sugars are either going to the cows or the biofuels.

The "limited value" isn't so limited when we're talking about an additive to gasoline. The first thing we tried polluted the entire world with a background level of lead!

	▲	throwaway27448 31 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Of course, it also destroys the topsoil without careful management