Comment Re:Maybe this corn can be used for food again? (Score 1) 314
They certainly identified the problem correctly... but then they had to meddle because there was just too much political hay to be made. Even when this corn ethanol program started, it was already pretty well established that corn was the wrong source material to use for fuel. As I recall, there was already a near consensus among researchers that switchgrass was probably the way to go. But they let some powerful legislators from the midwest shape the program in a manner designed NOT to be good for the country's long-term interests, but good for their short-term political gain.
I don't think it was a boon to farmers so much as a boon to Monsanto and ADM. This program was a monstrous subsidy to a couple of very fat companies, at the expense of pretty much everyone else -- people who pay taxes, people who eat, people who had other uses for the land, etc.