FOOD OR ENERGY: DOES SWITCHING TO CEREALS FOR ENERGY, ALTERNATIVE INPUT IN BREWING CAST AN UGLY SHADOW ON FOOD SECURITY?

The energy prices are already through the roof setting precedence to the cost attributes on all services and goods where they are a vital ingredient to many a business. For the moment the world economy stability has resiliently prevailed though periodical jitters plague it even when the all powerful producers like Venezuela threaten turning off the taps.
There have been tones of material written on who has done to who expects to do what in the field of diversifying our energy sources. Most of the concepts remain a gaping hole to a fully conclusive solution, an array of the immediate solutions on the table are clouded in controversy. Using food supplies to provide a short in the arm to efforts to bring down pollution and put a brake on out of hand spiraling oil costs spells doom to direct consumers fearing food price hikes. The food stocks are limited and the ever increasing demand for cereals to cater for energy deficits are all here.
While corporate world has seen many enterprises go under or shift their manufacturing bases to somewhere else as energy increases factored in to reduce gains in the low labour cost constraints others have offered to stay but resort to cheaper energy sources. The alternatives have not come cheap as they needed hefty sums to invest into biodiesel facilities to realize a long term energy cost reduction solutions, before they are there the dynamics have already changed and the biodiesel raw materials (cereals mostly corn wheat etc) are in an upward trend. Wasted investments in restructuring? Nowhere is this daunting task troubling company executives than in china to date. We already treading a more dangerous lane that even brewers who have not been thinking alike in their choice of raw materials have joined the fray, read the east African running from 18th – 24th of this month “RWANDA FIRM TO USE MAIZE IN BEER BREWING”. Corn at least has not been a target ingredient of choice for many brewers but its being slightly low priced coupled with easy availability could mean a vital solution to have brewers remain competitive. While the world grapples with demand from China to India to America and the world over for vital inputs in brewing like barley, demand for their products is increasing exponentially and the prices for securing the barley is rallying in that direction. What will the gravity of the Dilemma if they also resort to cheaper sources like corn already targeted by energy companies for their biodiesel supplies? Which is also inline as staple food for many poor Africans?
The question is who will emerge the winner in managing even a small price hike? What defies my thinking is why the African governments don’t take to this double chance on a win win situation. An increased demand for corn, sorghum and barley at a premium renders a robust increase in our exports and home demand allows for critical mass, We should afford our population agricultural loans subsidize tractors and vital agricultural implements for our agricultural industry to harness the arable land lying around while people languish in poverty and go hungry.
The critical mass will allow Business farming enterprise to thrive and we in Africa can be self sufficient and properly positioned to export. A premium offered by the market to our farmers can lift people from poverty.
We however resort to a wait and see attitude on whether this can catch on in Africa but it demands for guts from visionary leaders who are mostly self centered skewing their expenditure to shift the horizon for the better. I mean before we go into hi-tech we need to be satisfied and for us to be Hi-tech we need an income to take our kids to good schools. We need the export dollars and completely secure food stocks.