Price of white corn doubles

Last week, one of the basic foodstuffs of the Salvadoran family hit record highs in price. As reported in La Prensa Grafica, the price for a hundred pound bag of corn has doubled this year from $10-12 to a high of $22. At the retail level, corn prices went up from $0.13 to $0.25 per pound and tortilla prices have risen as much as 43%.

Why the increases? Two causes are reported. One is the ethanol craze in the US which has dramatically driven up the worldwide price for corn. The other is the weather in El Salvador, where irregular rains and a bug infestation are dramatically reducing the yields of corn per acre of land.

Comments

El-Visitador said…
Come on, Tim!

The price of corn has increased dramatically in every country, not just El Salvador. This is because the U.S. used to export 70% of the world's corn exports".

The U.S. is entitled, quite of course, to do whatever it wants with its products.

But those kids going to bed hungry tonight worldwide for lack of corn weigh on the conscience of each and every "greenie" environmentalist who advocated the use of renewables derived from corn.