We watch food prices soar upward, beginning when the price of oil took off like a rocket taking the price of gasoline and diesel up with it. Our leaders decided growing corn to make ethanol for biofuel was the answer. They subsidized the growing of corn for biofuel with billions of taxpayer’s dollars. Add the cost of growing and using lots of energy to refine the corn. Any “benefits” are a study in self delusion. Gallon for gallon, ethanol delivers less energy than petroleum fuels at high cost.

Farmers depend on corn to feed their livestock. When the price of corn doubles, farmers have to raise prices for cattle, pigs, sheep and poultry or cull their herds and flocks. When this happens, it causes a shortage that automatically raises prices of meat, milk, butter, cheese and eggs — the same protein-rich foods that are so necessary to the health and strength of a population.

Livestock are not the only foods affected by the shortage of oil. It takes fuel to plow, plant, cultivate, irrigate, harvest and transport foods to market. The high price of diesel and gasoline means machinery costs more to operate on the farms as well as fuel the trucks that deliver products to market. All oil users must charge their habits more or we will all go out of business. This spiraling up of costs is what creates inflation.

Add to this the terrible floods that inundated and destroyed almost ten percent of the crops and you have another shortage that increases prices and contributes to inflation brought on by the high cost of energy that is necessary to the business of America. People are forced to spend a larger part of their incomes to drive to work to earn their livings and to shop for family necessities. Our leaders do nothing to develop our own resources in Alaska, both offshore and in our own country, so that we won’t have to depend on others. They let the bandit leaders of the OPEC countries push the price of oil out of sight. This is what is destroying our American economy.

Years ago, I read that the wonderful deep soil in those Midwest corn states is growing thinner each year. I watch with alarm, especially after seeing a piece in National Geographic on “Unjust Desert” where Chinese farmers “over-farmed, overgrazed and created new deserts in the process.”

We’re not there yet, but this nation needs to take care of its precious soil and not misuse, overuse or abuse it either. One day it will be needed to feed a world that grows hungrier every day.