Political Quotes

“moving from food for fuel to food for food, we come to the floor tonight to talk about the international food crisis. We're going to look at the causes and effects and possible solutions. We're also going to take a closer look at the situation in Haiti, a country that is only approximately 400 miles off our coast, our neighbor in the Western hemisphere, a country that is arguably one of the worst off in this global food crisis. There are many causes of the food crisis that we face now. Some of the causes are recent developments and others have been developing for years. This year we saw lower crop yields because of weather and global climate change. There is increased demand for processed foods from countries with growing middle classes like China and India. There's an increased demand for biofuels like ethanol, which is primarily made from corn. And in response to high commodity prices, a number of countries introduced export bans to preserve food for their own populations, while decreasing the world's supply. This graph illustrates the record-high food prices that brought on this crisis: Wheat prices up 81 percent in 2007; soybean prices up 71 percent in 2007. Rice, which feeds almost one-half of the world's population, its price increased 144 percent since January of this year. Corn prices shot up 24 percent since January of 2008, and the rise came right after this Congress passed a landmark energy bill requiring increased use of ethanol.”