Comments on: Obesity, Global Trade and Beer Prices: Why the Farm Bill is actually cool

By: yvonne

yvonne — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:37:41 +0000

Hi,

Great site!!!! Obesity is the cause of many diseases. There are a lot of American’s that are over weight. We have to stop eating FAST FOODS it is killing us. Good health is our greatest asset without good health we are doomed to die. We need to eat right, exercise and drink plenty of water to help maintain good health and well-being

By: CCBC

CCBC — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 23:31:47 +0000

Canada and Brazil are combining a WTO aqction against the US on the basis of farm subsidies, especially corn. After all, there’s free trade, right? And the US forced a terrible lumber deal on Canada because of pretended subsidies, so turnabout is fair play. But, seriously, US agriculture is the most subsidized in the world and really damaging to nations like Brazil whose economies depend on agriculture.

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:29:11 +0000

…and not that much barley either, truth be told.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:23:19 +0000

Actually, college students won’t notice, since the “beer” they drink doesn’t actually contain any hops…

O:-)

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:02:09 +0000

Additionally, I have read that more acreage is being planted with hops, but they won’t be producing until 2-3 years down the road.

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:00:30 +0000

As far as barley goes, you are correct… many farmers have taken to planting corn to cash in on the demand for ethanol feedstock. (The issue of whether corn is an appropriate or sustainable ethanol feedstock notwithstanding.) However, hops production has been affected more by “acts of God” than by farmers choosing to grow other crops. Hops are perennials so they don’t need to be planted each year (like corn or barley); however, the past two years’ hop harvest in the US have been extremely poor. To add insult to injury, in 2006 a warehouse containing 4 percent of American hop production burned. So the 2006 and 2007 harvests were poor, and the 2006 harvest was further diminished by the loss of the hops in that warehouse.

Commercial brewers have contracts for hop producers to supply them, leaving homebrewers to pick up whatever’s left over. I have been reading that homebrewers will have to learn to brew with different varieties as the commercial brewers pretty much have the Centennial, Cascade, etc. cultivars locked up for the foreseeable future.

By: nick

nick — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:59:00 +0000

ethanol is the stupidest shit ever, we should not be using edible sources for energy. Corn also screws up crops, arg!