Please, not the beer!

Or…another reason I’m against ethanol as an alternative fuel.

Apparently the beer brewing industry is facing rising costs from increased prices of fuel, aluminum, glass, and not at all least...hops, barley and other grains. The cost of hops and other grains have jumped as farmers are dropping those crops to plant corn to meet the increasing demand for ethanol.

As a result of the increased cost of hops and barley and the cost and availability of corn, some brewers are using corn instead. This is a real health bummer because conventionally grown corn is treated with copious amounts of pesticide and beer bottlers aren’t required to print an ingredient list on their bottles, so we may not know which are which.

As far as growing corn for ethanol production, not only are farms across America foregoing other crops to plant moneymaking crops like corn, but I suspected the inevitability of a bunch of poor starving rainforest farmers cutting down trees to plant money making corn crops. Alas, it’s already happening! See http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0516-ethanol_amazon.html

Corn is not only genetically modified and highly sprayed, it has other drawbacks. Corn is also a huge consumer of nitrogen, leaving the soil depleted of this important nutrient. Corn is an open-pollinating crop; wind and insects can carry the pollen up to several miles. This means that conventional corn can and does infiltrate organic corn crops.

Uggh.