Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Cheese problems at Subway

I just encountered the food shortage problem at Subway today.

I noticed that when they made a large sub, they used to put 4 slices of cheese on. Lately they have only been putting 2. I thought this might just be the location that I went to. However, my friend also had the same experience at another location.

So today I asked what was going on. The girl there told me that their cheese came from Australia and that, because of drought, the cows weren't producing as much milk as usual. Also they pointed me to a fax that was posted. It said that the cheese problem was due to crops being shifted to ethanol production. With ethanol being so hot, more crops like corn are being planted to meet the demand and that means other land is being taken out of use for solely food production, for growing vegetables and fruit and raising animals.

I'm not sure what the clear connection is but the food shortage problem is in line with what has been happening in other parts of the world.

Oil prices have reached $117 a barrel. Egypt is trying to stem riots over the price of flour for breads and pasta. Vegetables in Taiwan are getting more and more expensive (this also happens after floods and typhoons because of crop damage). Even vegetable oil, a main staple of Chinese cooking,is creeping up. Things everyone took for granted are being affected.

If conversion to ethanol is really the problem then here is the crux of the environmental movements problem. Drastic changes like this have destabilizing effects as investors gauge the new value of the crops for fuel. And besides, is ethanol really a decent solution or even a stop-gap measure?

Oil and electricity prices have been capped until May 20. What happens after that is anyone's guess. Suddenly, that fourth nuclear reactor for Taiwan doesn't seem like such a bad idea. I wonder if the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) folks will soften under such energy need pressures. Would you rather have coal or prohibitively expensive and sometimes impractical alternative energy (wind, solar, hydro) which amount to just a trickle of what the country needs?

There are some difficult decisions to be made. For now, I decide to let those two extra slices of cheese go and pay the same price so I guess I'm doing my part.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this tid-bit of info.
Is it true that the cows have stopped producing milk in Australia. I doubt it!

But the world food shortage is real. It is partly due to the US policy of converting maise for biofuel but it is mainly an increasingly wealthy world slowly moving to a higher meat diet. When the demand is slightly greater than supply and reserves are so tight, sharp price increases are the result. Things will balance out in the longer term but in the meantime I guess it is 2 pieces of cheese per foot-long. Expect that foot-long to cost you more too!

corey said...

could always pay $0.50 for more cheese, 哈哈...don't remember if they do that in Taiwan or not (might be more expensive than that).

Anyway...no, ethanol is not the biggest problem...there is enough food, but our distribution methods are in need of a major overhaul. Just go look at the poorer nations, their leaders don't have a problem with food, nor do the elitists in India, but when 5% of the world is controlling the distribution of food, there is something wrong. In India, you'll see food just rotting in warehouses, the same in America...everywhere it is the same: the wealthy don't care, and the poor suffer. As long at the top are taken care of, the rest don't matter.

Another thing, we could stop consuming so much meat and start planting other crops in the place of the corn we use to feed the current warehouse cow stock. Seriously, we don't need as much meat as we consume here in the west...just some thoughts.

Sorry for the rambling.

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