US now importing corn

From Investor's Business Daily (h/t Instapundit):

For the first time, U.S. agricultural companies are importing corn from Brazil — the equivalent of Saudi Arabia importing oil, as the Financial Times noted.

Why is the US experiencing an unprecedented shortage of food? The left may  want to blame it on a drought but the problem is actually man-made (or, should I write, "Mann-made"):

The problem here is the man-made element that is exacerbating the U.S. drought. There should be plenty of corn from U.S. reserves after recent record harvests for exports — 61 million metric tons in 2008 — were it not for the 2007 law that forces U.S. corn producers to turn ever greater percentages of U.S. corn into ethanol.

"As biofuel production develops and expands, it will continue to put pressure on U.S. corn and other feed grain production, exports, livestock feeding, and other domestic uses," the Agriculture Department says.

Today, 40% of our corn is consumed by ethanol making — the filling of gas tanks instead of stomachs. And another 20% is being destroyed by drought this year. [Emph. added]

In a world in which an estimated “billion people suffer from chronic hunger,” and with global warming theories in ever greater disrepute, this policy is ever more reprehensible.

PREVIOUSLY on global warming:
•Global warming provokes laughter, even in the San Francisco Bay Area
•"If I wanted America to Fail"
•Global warmism as anti-science
•More ethics problems among Global Warming "scientists"
•4.5 Billion to die this year, or maybe not
•Global warmists propose mass killing of animals
•Democrat: Global Warming will destroy Washington DC by the year 2000
•Earth Day: environmentalism and the test of science
•The collapse of the UN IPCC's credibility
•Yet another UN IPCC Glacier-gate scandal
•UN IPCC claims of melting Himalayan glaciers exposed as fraud
•Environmentalists at war with environmentalists over green energy
•EPA's new global warming rules, illustrated
•California global warming rules backfire
•France's carbon tax ruled unconstitutional
•UN IPCC responds to Climategate with wild accusations
•Surprise: EU's carbon trading riddled with fraud
•Global warming and the test of science, III
•Global warming and the test of science, II
•Global warming and the test of science, I
•141 scientists wrote letter to UN challenging global warming hysteria.
•Ma'am Sen. Boxer for and against climate whistleblowers.
•BBC propaganda on global warming
•Climate alarmist Phil Jones to step down pending review
•Why Penn State's investigation of its global warmist will go nowhere
•Former boss calls James Hansen call an embarrassment to NASA
•NASA's global warming scientists caught hyping false data
•The resemblance of global warming true-believers to Islamists
•James Hansen "muzzled" by Bush White House?