Ivory Tower

Today’s musical dedication goes out to all the agave growers in Mexico. We hope you’re listening: “Mas Tequila,” by Sammy Hagar and the Waboritas
***
Tequila drinkers might want to consider stocking up while they can.

News services recently reported that Mexican farmers are torching their fields of agave, the cactus-like plant from which the alcoholic elixir is made, and planting as much corn as they can. Seems they want to take advantage of the growing demand for corn to make ethanol.

Officials say 25 percent to 35 percent of Mexico’s agave fields will be switched to corn this year alone.

The sad thing is that this demand for corn is artificial, created by Congress to generate more money for big farmers who lobby heavily for all they government money they can, and to make some Americans believe that the lawmakers are doing something to bring cleaner-burning fuel to our gas pumps and reduce pollution. Evidence continues to grow, however, that ethanol is a big, inefficient ruse. Once the energy and cost of growing the corn and distilling it into fuel, it actually adds more pollution into the atmosphere than it saves as a motor fuel.

Can you believe that — all the oil refineries spewing smoke into the sky around Port Arthur actually do less damage to the atmosphere than all the tractors and ethanol breweries processing the corn?

Private businesses know this. If it weren’t for hefty government subsidies, the whole ethanol business would fall apart because nobody wants to invest his own money into such a wasteful enterprise. Since it’s our tax money, however, our representatives have no qualms about burning it into thin air.

All that corn that’s being cooked for fuel, however, has created corn shortages in the food market. That greatly affects Mexico, where tortillas and other corn products are a daily staple of most family diets. That has pushed up prices of those products, even though they are regulated by Mexico’s government, and increased the demand for feed corn.

So, goodbye, Jose Cuervo, and hello, scarecrows in the new milpas that are sprouting up south of the border.

It’s enough to drive a person to drink. Unfortunately, we might just have to make do with tepache.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 11:15 am and is filed under Daily. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.