The return of the hungry horses

As a result of this hydrocarbon revolution, most of the hungry horses and farm labourers were made redundant by machines and they suddenly disappeared from the farms. This allowed farms to sell much more surplus food to town dwellers. Moreover, the tireless tractors could work night and day with bigger machinery, allowing more land to be cultivated when the weather and soil conditions were just right. Farm exports grew and the real price of food began a long decline; cities were fed better and urban populations grew.

Today, with bigger machines, more fertiliser and more water our farms produce even more cereals, dairy products, meats and fibres for animals and humans. The yields are also improved by the increased CO2 plant food in the atmosphere.

But now vote-seeking politicians are dictating that more farm produce must be consumed as ethanol by the hungry iron horses of today – millions of cars, trucks, tractors, bikes and stationary engines. In the year 2000, most of the huge US corn crop went into food for people and livestock; but by 2013, 40% of a bigger crop was consumed making biofuel, with questionable savings in emissions once the whole process is considered. In other countries, the ethanol and biofuel madness has seen native forests and food plantations cleared to make space for ethanol crops. Even more land is being sterilised by solar panels, wind turbines, access roads, big batteries and power lines. Today's hungry green horses gobble far more food than our Clydesdales ever did.

Even here in food-producing Queensland, the party of the workers promotes policies that reduce the supply of food to the tables of the workers to produce more ethanol to burn in cars, bikes, SUV's, yachts and limos, and even for the "going-green" US Navy when it visits.

This pro-ethanol policy pits plant farmers against animal farmers and green politicians against food consumers. It will ensure that every feedlot, piggery, chicken house and family farm will see a reduced supply of animal feed because grains and sugar cane have been diverted to motor fuel. The "Ethanol Tax" will be paid at meal times where the prices of cereals, milk, cream, sugar, treacle, syrup, pork, bacon, eggs, hamburgers and steak will be higher than they would have been without ethanol coercion.

This ethanol madness threatens to take us back towards those hungry years before the kerosene-powered tractors arrived and draft horses ate half the farm output.

Ethanol political coercion is the problem – it shows there is no real need/demand for it. It is a vote-catching exercise pandering to certain electorates and certain farmers. People who wish to use ethanol-laced fuels on environmental, economic or religious grounds should be free to do so, but with no coercion or subsidies.

The increased use of biofuels has forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

US Corn used for ethanol.

Europe burns more than 17,000 tonnes of rapeseed and sunflower oil every day and this has resulted in spiralling food price rises.

The global demand for biofuels has led to deforestation with the inevitable release of significant amounts of smoke and carbon dioxide. Millions of acres of monoculture plantations are spreading across the globe on land once teeming with bush and wildlife. And not a peep of protest from green zealots.

This is biofuel lunacy. There is no moral, scientific or economic justification to legislate ethanol folly.

The hungry horses are back, but now they live in upper-class stables in the green leafy suburbs. And half the farm is now covered by solar panels and many birds and bats have been sliced by the whirling blades.