Flooding in the U.S. corn belt, the world's largest corn-producing region, has contributed to the week's price run-up.
The price of corn is pivotal in the world food equation, and food markets are on edge because U.S. corn stocks are plummeting.
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The price of corn is a critical variable in the world food equation, and food markets are on edge because U.S. corn stocks are plummeting due to the ethanol mandate.
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In the past week the world price of corn has increased more than 30%, according to Maximo Torero, a director of markets, trade and institutions at the International Food Policy Research Institute.
The basic argument is that because ethanol comes from corn, the push to replace some traditional fuels with ethanol has created a new demand for corn that has thrown off world food prices.
Thus far the star of this new science has been ethanol, a car fuel made from corn, but around the world chemical, grain and biotech companies are working to produce auto paint, cosmetics, even apparel fiber from renewable resources.
China is the No. 2 corn producer behind the US. It produced around 6.2 billion bushels, or 158 million metric tons of corn in 2010, compared to world leading US production of 12 billion bushels, or 331 million metric tons in 2010, according to the US Grains Council, an industry lobby.
Recently, for example, I was in Nicaragua visiting a new client, a 700-member farmer cooperative that produces coffee for export and corn for domestic consumption The cooperative sells 300 tons of corn annually to its main buyer, the World Food Programme which is used to produce 6.7 million school lunches a year or one meal per day for 44, 000 children for an entire school year.
For example, the Amazon pupunha-a is a fruit that can yield twice as much starch as Iowa corn, and the Amazonian babassu palm gives the world's highest yield of vegetable oil.
Additionally, heavily subsidized corn and soy feed to livestock contribute to massive deforestation in the developing world.
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GMOs made up more than half the world's soya crop by area, a quarter of its corn and over a tenth of its cotton.
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Maize (corn), tomatoes, beans, potatoes and much else became staples throughout the world.
The BOA's Olympic coaching programme, led by Rugby World Cup-winning coach Sir Clive Woodward, will receive "seed corn funding" from the deal.
In 2008 and 2011, when corn prices went up to levels nearly as high as today's, the world saw a sharp rise in food riots.
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In the 1990s China was one of the first countries to approve some genetically modified cash crops, such as cotton and corn, and today China has more acreage devoted to growing GM crops than just about any other country in the world.
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