Download - icrisat

45
9.
SEEDS FOR MY SWEET.
SORGHUM FOR MY HONEY,
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!
The Yankee poultry raisers feed their chickens with
expensive food: corn. That is because corn prices have
jumped following the high demand for corn for ethanol,
GW Bush’s biofuel of choice. Are they riding
Volkswagens now? Do Yankees always make terrible
food-for-non-food choices?
With each jump in the corn price, the Yankee farmers are happier and the poultry raisers in the US and in the
Philippines are sadder. You see, we Filipinos purchase Yankee jokes and buy their corn. This one is for the birds.
Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute, says, ‘We’re putting the supermarket in competition with the
corner filling station for the output of the farm’ (Matthew Wald, 2006 January 16, nytimes.com). ‘We’ here refers to
the Yankees, who thrive on competition, which drives their economy. They have capitalism, don’t they?
Robert Brown, a professor in agricultural engineering at Iowa State University, says ‘The impression is that we’re
taking food out of the mouths of babes’ (nytimes.com). No, Professor, we don’t give babies our corn. Where life is
harsh, as is often the case, we give them our grit.
Corn aside, Wald says, ‘A global shift to farm-based fuel could reduce the need for oil and slow climate
change.’ That’s about the best summary of the whole scenario I have come across. There’s economy of words
that reminds me of Henry David Thoreau’s injunction: ‘Simplify, simplify, simplify! ... Simplicity of life and elevation