Trying to save the corn tortilla

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I’m not sure what the hell is going on with the world these days. First there was a daal shortage. More recently, word has gotten out that the corn tortilla population is in decline and at serious risk:

MANY DEMOCRATS and some Republicans applauded President Bush’s State-of-the-Union proposal for a 20 percent reduction in gasoline use over the next 10 years, largely through greater reliance on ethanol.

Bush’s idea, however, is adding corn-based fuel to protests in Mexico City. Existing federal laws that mandate ethanol in U.S. gasoline have diverted trainloads of corn from America’s food supply-chain to ethanol factories. This boosted U.S. corn prices nearly 80 percent in 2006.

That’s bad enough if you buy corn on the cob for a weekend barbecue. But it’s much worse if you are a poor Mexican surviving on corn tortillas. A kilo (2.2 pounds) of tortillas recently has shot up 55 percent, from 5.5 to 8.5 pesos. Poor Mexicans are not taking this sitting down. [Link]

Look, I know that wheat tortillas are “healthier” for you and that flour tortillas are less soggy. But come on. Nothing but a hot corn tortilla smothered in enchilada sauce should be wrapped around spinach and cheese filling. Via BoingBoing we now learn that “famed” investor Vinod Khosla is going to build an ethanol plant in Georgia that will use waste wood instead of corn to produce the fuel:

We knew it was coming. Vinod Khosla has finally made a bold move to back up industry-wide speculation that cellulosic ethanol would soon emerge as the next phase in ethanol production. The surprise is that wood would be the feedstock of choice given the vast headstart of corn-based biorefineries in the country and the obvious synergy of basing corn stover conversion technologies near sugar fermentation plants.

However, the high energy potential of wood cellulose, the ready availability of cheap waste, and the search for a renaissance of forestry-based industries makes the announcement a welcome one to the “nation’s woodpile” in the southeastern states. [Link]

To put it more simply, why kill tortillas to make fuel for your car when instead you could use the scrap wood from all the post consumer waste you produce? I for one am glad that investors like Khosla have the foresight to pump money into alternative sources of fuel while big oil keeps reaping record profits from our pockets.

And before anyone accuses me of being a bad Indian, I like rotis too.

17 thoughts on “Trying to save the corn tortilla”

  1. Actually, the corn tortillas are healthier. Also the price of tortillas is on its way down. A source in the Mexican President’s office told me that it was largely a bubble, based on panic buying.

  3. Abhi, is it ethanol that has fueled protests, or is it the concern over genetically modified seeds, a la Novartis or Monsanto? Maybe I am totally misunderstanding, but the impression I’ve had over the past few years was that subsistence farmers were having a really difficult time maintaining their corn crops in the face of U.S. dumping, “killer” seeds, and poor transport systems.

  4. Nothing but a hot corn tortilla smothered in enchilada sauce should be wrapped around spinach and cheese filling.

    Dammit Abhi, why do you have to make me crave a midnight snack. Oh man that sounds good. . . .

    I love vegetarian soft shell corn tacos, with lots of tomatillo salsa. Food of the gods.

  5. Close the comments on this thread before more corn, cornfed meat and chicken, and corn sweetners enter our diets. Don’t forget the chicken nuggets made out of corn and corn glue to hold the corn chicken to the corn nugget skin. Yet, all this consumption of cornucopiate corn has us less resembling the upright, svelte corn and more the pudgy pumpkin. Ye gods! Eat more corn, look like pumpkin! We are fast becoming bipedal corn chips with portly figures driving plastic cars fueled by corn gas.

    Our complexion remains wheatish though. There is hope.

  6. I loves me some corn. But the US produces way too much. Michael Pollan:

    We’re producing way too much corn. So, we make corn sweeteners. High-fructose corn sweeteners are everywhere. They’ve completely replaced sugar in sodas and soft drinks. They make sweet things cheaper. We also give it to animals. Corn explains everything about the cattle industry. It explains why we have to give [cattle] antibiotics, because corn doesn’t agree with their digestive system. It explains why we have this E.coli 0157 problem, because the corn acidifies their digestive system in such a way that these bacteria can survive. And we subsidize this overproduction. We structure the subsidies to make corn very, very cheap, which encourages farmers to plant more and more to make the same amount of money. The argument is that it helps us compete internationally. The great beneficiaries are the processors that are using corn domestically. We’re subsidizing obesity. We’re subsidizing the food-safety problems associated with feedlot beef. It’s an absolutely irrational system. The people who worry about public health don’t have any control over agricultural subsidies. The USDA is not thinking about public health. The USDA is thinking about getting rid of corn. And, helping [businesses] to be able to make their products more cheaply – whether it’s beef or high-fructose corn syrup. Agribusiness gives an immense amount of funding to Congress.

  9. Oh good, someone beat me to quoting the new food bible, Omnivore’s Dilemma. I feel like I read somewhere that it actually takes more energy to get energy out of corn than it itself produces? I hope I am not posting half-truths here…

  10. Michael Pollan rocks!

    That said, I think switchgrass (which apparently covers most of Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle) is the new “corn”, as far as fuel resources go.

  11. Why not start with agricultural waste we already produce? If you’re able to process cellulose, wouldn’t the next logical step be all the plant matter we just throw away? I wonder how many Americans could power their homes with the lawn clippings most Americans discard? Hell, what about the corn stalks and husks?

    Why create a huge new demand for deforestation?

  12. A source in the Mexican President’s office told me that it was largely a bubble, based on panic buying.

    That, and the fact that there is very little competition among the tortilla makers in Mexico who have gone on and raised tortilla prices excessively. On the flip side though, the Mexican President would have done better to ease the import duties on corn, which are now levied even on the higher corn prices imported from across the border.

  16. But that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon: the Bush Administration proposed eliminating the ethanol tariff this past spring, but Congress quickly quashed the idea—Barack Obama was among several Midwestern senators who campaigned in support of the tariff—and the sugar quotas appear to be as sacrosanct as ever. Tariffs and quotas are extremely hard to get rid of, once established, because they create a vicious circle of back-scratching—government largesse means that sugar producers get wealthy, giving them lots of cash to toss at members of Congress, who then have an incentive to insure that the largesse continues to flow. More important, protectionist rules flourish because the benefits are concentrated among a small number of easy-to-identify winners, while the costs are spread out across the entire population. It may be annoying to pay a few more cents for sugar or ethanol, but most of us are unlikely to lobby Congress about it.

    http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/061127ta_talk_surowiecki