30312: Benson (reply) RE: 30300: Morse (comment) Castro/biofuels (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Response to 30300  From LeGrace Benson (once Associate editor of Farmers'
Cooperative Exchange news reports)

There is some evidence that the displacement of use of farmland in US from
corn as food for humans and livestock to use for biofuels would have a
strong impact on the cost of that basic crop; that land used to grow any
fuel crops (switchgrass, sugar beets, sugar cane, etc.) would be taken out
of production for foodstuffs.

There is a great deal of information and discussion about this on the web.
More hopeful is the possible use of algae which can be grown on wetlands
(not rice intermittent wetlands) and which contain a much higher percentage
of fats usable for fuels.  Fidel has been languishing about with little to
do but read, so he may be better informed about all this than most.

A possibility for Haiti where many hectares of land have never or seldom had
chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicide is the production of organic
foods.