The False Dilemma of “Food or Fuel” The Effects of Ethanol Production on Crop Prices and Agricultural Land Use
Abstract
Existing studies on corn ethanol allege that US government policies encouraging its
production have lead to higher food prices and an expansion of land used for corn
production, raising concerns that the impoverished will lose access to food and that
ethanol cannot effectively offset greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. In this
paper I use data from the US Department of Agriculture to attempt to determine whether
any meaningful relationship can be established between historical ethanol production
and crop prices or agricultural land use. I find that, while a correlation does exist
between ethanol production and crop prices, this correlation is better explained by
accompanying changes in oil prices. I also find that increased ethanol production
has not been associated with an increase in the amount of land used for agriculture
in the United States. I conclude that while no significant correlation can be established
between past and present levels of ethanol production and crop prices or land use,
future expansions of ethanol production may still affect these variables. Future policies
should therefore be cautious about expanding ethanol production beyond what current
US agricultural production capacity can support.
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
Public Policy StudiesPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3173Citation
Sarkisian, David (2010). The False Dilemma of “Food or Fuel”
The Effects of Ethanol Production on Crop Prices and Agricultural Land Use. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3173.Collections
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