things like Ethanol in the US driving up the price of corn
You can't really drive up the price of an individual crop. If the price of one crop goes up, they all go up. There is only so much land, so if one crop looks to be more profitable, farmers will shift their growing plan to include more of that crop, leading to shortages of the other crops.
Given this article, if true, means that ethanol may have play little to no role in the commodity price increases. I remember at the time it was really only the mainstream media that jumped on ethanol. In the farming communities, investors were thought to be the source of the price increases even then.
You can't really drive up the price of an individual crop. If the price of one crop goes up, they all go up. There is only so much land, so if one crop looks to be more profitable, farmers will shift their growing plan to include more of that crop, leading to shortages of the other crops.
Given this article, if true, means that ethanol may have play little to no role in the commodity price increases. I remember at the time it was really only the mainstream media that jumped on ethanol. In the farming communities, investors were thought to be the source of the price increases even then.