If, as the presenter calculated, the world is going
to need an additional 30 MMT of vegetable oil for
biodiesel production by 2010, from whence will it
come? In addition to soybean oil, palm oil from
Malaysia and Indonesia, canola from Canada and
Australia and sunseed oil from Argentina are likely
sources. Each has a limited capacity, and in the
case of palm oil, up to five years is required for
the trees to become productive. Soybean oil will
remain the marginal supply source, and this will
inject far greater price volatility into the
soybean market than seen in the past. A similar
analysis for ethanol indicates U.S. corn will be
the marginal source of supply, with consequence for
prices.
Where does that leave us? The combination of high
conventional energy prices and government mandates
are going to put fuel claims on what had been the
sole province of food claims. This means energy
prices will drive agricultural prices, and the
energy market's impact on agricultural prices will
be far stronger and more immediate than will the
food market's impact. And as seen before, any
downturn in the conventional fuel market will
render biofuels uneconomic very quickly.
The prospect is unsatisfying. If high prices
strengthen energy's claim on food supplies,
governments everywhere will intervene on behalf of
their hungry citizens. If low prices torpedo
biofuels' economics, governments everywhere will
respond with subsidies for these industries. Only
an elimination of current mandates and subsidies
today will avoid these problems tomorrow, but the
likelihood of this happening is near zero. Somehow
I believe we will rue the day when we decided to
make food and fuel substitutes at the margin.