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Planet Green’s web site has a series running entitled ‘Peak Everything’, in which they examine the long-term prospects for commodities that are essential to our livelihoods.  They have concluded that many of these important goods are going to face major supply challenges in the future, if they aren’t already.  Everything from rice to water to metals face the threat of a supply peak, in which global supplies reach an unsustainable high even though the global population’s demand continues unrelenting.  In this post, we’ll look at their report on corn.

Cheap grain prices over the past decades have allowed us to construct a diet that is entirely dependent on it.  As the article points out, a McDonald’s meal is almost all derived from corn.  This is proving to be troublesome now, as an ever-growing world population that continues to chip away at farmland is putting heavy strains on supply.  Further adding to the issue is our love affair with meat, as livestock demands a lot of the stuff and takes up a large amount of land to boot. 

Our nasty little habit of burning corn in our gas tanks is really starting to prove to be a dumb idea, although we just keep doing it.  When massive food shortages seem to be in the early stages, it just doesn’t make sense to be diverting 5% of the world’s grain production to fuel production, especially considering it’s barely energy positive to do so, if at all.  Yes, oil is expensive, but we can’t sacrifice our food supplies in a desperate attempt to help.  I do feel that more people are realizing this, even here in Iowa, but we really need to give it up completely as a future fuel option. 

The corn shortages figure to have major impacts on our lives, but the situation isn’t completely dire.  As the article suggests, the rise in prices of cheap, processed foods will make healthier and more environmentally friendly eating a more viable option for many people.