The New York Times opposes corn-based ethanol production
THE influential New York Times has criticized an unprecedented increase in U.S. corn production for making ethanol to substitute just a small fraction of the petroleum consumed by that country.

In an April 4 editorial titled "The Consequences of Corn," the Times comments on farmers' excessive interest in using more land for that crop in their zeal to obtain quick profits.

The sudden upturn in corn production stems from U.S. President George W. Bush's policy favoring biofuels, even at the risk of upsetting the country's agricultural equilibrium, with a sharp drop in soybean and cotton production, among others.

The New York Times reveals that this year, U.S. farmers plan to plant 90.5 million acres of corn, 12 million acres more than the year before, the most land dedicated to that crop since 1944. Land for soybean production has been decreased by more than 10%, with similar drops for wheat and cotton, the newspaper reports.

In addition to endangering the production of export grains, the editorial comments on another, lesser-known danger: exploiting land that is supposed to be under an environmental protection program. These are some 37 million acres of farmland that have been returned to Nature because of being "too hilly, too wet, too valuable as wildlife habitat," and their conservation is paid for with taxpayer money, the paper notes.

The Conservation Reserve Program has already stopped adding more land, and "agricultural interest groups" have begun to request the release of protected lands for growing crops, the editorial notes.

"Much as we like the idea of ethanol production - and especially the potential of cellulosic ethanol, from sources other than corn - it would be a tragic mistake to jettison two decades of farm-based conservation for short-term profit," The New York Times affirmed. "Corn ethanol will replace only a small fraction of the petroleum we use, and if it does so at the cost of a new agricultural land rush, then we will have lost much more in conservation than we gained in energy independence."

In addition, the major U.S. daily's top headlines on Thursday included Cuban President Fidel Castro's criticism of Bush's plans to increase the use of foods like corn and soybeans for ethanol production. (Prensa Latina)

Translated by Granma International


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