Rising food prices caused by rising gasoline costs

The cost of gasoline is going up because of our current flailing, misguided, disastrous Gore-inspired bio-energy program and the bloated USDA programs to bail out US farmers. The USDA programs are older than Al Gore, so he definitely isn't to be blamed for what his senator father might have helped put in place to protect agricultural interests (he was a tobacco farmer). Dead vegetation stored in the ground for centuries with heat and pressure becomes petroleum deposits. And we aren't running out--we're just out of common sense. Corn was hugely overproduced in 2007--no place to store it, plus it took acreage normally used for wheat and soybeans. Milk was being called "white gold" in ag circles, the price went so high. How are you helping the poor by taking milk from children?

No one knows how safe the emissions from the blended gasoline from corn or grass or wood chips will be; we only know that the trade offs are more expensive food and more expensive fuel which doesn't get as good mileage as real gasoline. Even if we had let gasoline prices float to $4 or $5 a gallon, it would have been cheaper than all the food cost increases--which are causing riots in some countries. The pizza we had Wednesday evening was $2.50 higher than a year ago; my Philly Cheese on Friday at the Bucket is $2.00 higher than a year ago. It adds up.

In my Ohio county, the cost of gasoline has gone up an average of $486 per household between 2005 and 2007, according to today's Columbus Dispatch. [I plan to fill up this morning at $3.12/gal.] That means for some people with Hummers and light trucks, it's gone up much more, and others with little Hondas and Saturns, much less. I have a 6 cyl. Dodge mini-van, which gets good mileage, so I'm probably the average. For this household, if we made smart choices, we'd change our routine Friday night date, to 40 nights instead of 52 a year. Those other 12 nights maybe we'd have friends in, instead of going out--much cheaper. That's all it would take to make up the difference. Or, we could eliminate our one glass of wine from our restaurant dinner ($13 for 2 of us counting the gratuity), and have it at home ($1.50, Charles Shaw, three buck chuck). For other families, it might mean eliminating 4 packs of cigarettes a week, or a 6 pack of beer, or a large pizza or stop going to Starbucks for a latte and going to the 7-11 instead. Maybe it would be dropping broadband or HBO. But eventually, those cut backs affect the restaurant servers, and the quick-stops, and the Starbucks staff, and then those people have to start laying off employees or reducing hours, and then they can't pay their utilities, baby-sitter, etc.

The answer, of course, is to have the discipline to save in good times--some experts say have 3 months living expenses set aside for emergencies. Never were we able to do that when our children were young (one income), but we always had a savings account to cover emergencies. Tithing your income is another good discipline--keeps you from slurping up the excess each month or hitting the mall when you have nothing to do. Also, pay your bills promptly--don't live on plastic.

Rising costs for food banks

Today's newspapers are full of stories about struggling food banks and pantries. Where to even begin on that one. The examples the reporters use are quite anecdotal--guy driving a truck to work now needs $50 a day. Lost his house. Utilities unpaid.

Food banks were set up to help farmers, not the poor. Now farmers are busting a gut and ripping out fences that provide sanctuary for birds to fill up the acreage with corn or other biofuel stuff, and there's no more surplus.

"Ohio food banks have received less in federal aid in recent years. The decline is attributed to a sharp drop in excess agricultural commodities."

But the farm bill isn't jammed up over debate about nutrition programs. Much of the dispute is focused on billions in government subsidies for farmers of crops such as wheat and cotton.

[Sherrod] Brown said the subsidies are excessive and favors scaling them back by providing farmers a "safety net" during bad times. "Too many on the agricultural committee want the subsidies to continue," he said. CD story, March 20

These food banks were set up 30-40 years ago to help the poor, but in fact they functioned as a place to sell (through distributors which sold to food banks) the surplus food our farmers were growing. The government also paid farmers (called soil banks) NOT to produce. I work occasionally at a Lutheran food pantry. It is a wonderful facility, called a "choice" pantry, because the client is able to choose with the assistance of a volunteer. It has commercial freezers and refrigerators to take advantage of surplus produce, shelving for staples, seating for the clients, staff areas and offices. However, churches have made a Faustian deal--most of our members who respond to the appeals (we have a big one going on right now) don't even know that probably 95% of this is funded by the government--90% by USDA, the rest in smaller local grants, which originates with various federal agencies and is filtered down to the cities and counties. Although those of us who work there on a rotation system through various churches are volunteers, there are regular paid staff whose salaries come from the government grants. The summer lunch program our church sponsors in a suburban school district is also funded by the USDA.

I am not familiar with the restrictions about evangelizing, but I'm sure there are some if the church food pantries are doing the government's food distribution job. We used to put evangelistic literature and church magazines into the grocery bags; now it is laid out for the clients to pick up if they wish.

This blog entry is my personal opinion and does not reflect the sentiments of my fellow volunteers or church members, but I don't think what we're doing for the poor meets the Matthew 25 standards.