The Midwest, America’s breadbasket, is undergoing a revolution. With the support and encouragement of the Bush administration, dozens of ethanol refineries are sprouting throughout the region’s vast fields - refineries built to transform corn into fuel.
 

More than 130 ethanol factories already exist in the United States; 70 more are under construction.
 

In Alexandria, Indiana, POET Biorefining just opened a new plant, creating 42 new jobs in an economically depressed area.
 

Every five minutes a load of corn arrives for processing.
 

“We have to do something to reduce our dependency on foreign oil,” says plant manager Dave Hudak, echoing the rhetoric often used by administration officials. “Right now there is no other way to do something that is quick and domestic, except ethanol.”
 

This increased demand is making US corn farmers happy. Prices are reaching record highs, thanks mainly to the growing appetite of the ethanol industry.
 

Down the road, in Greenfield, Indiana, Ronnie Mohr is riding in his new tractor – a 150,000-dollar beauty with an automatic guidance system.
 

“The other was getting old and a little too small to do everything we wanted it to do,” says Mohr. With a big smile, he adds “And, you know, new technology…”
 

Mohr has taken advantage of the boom to expand his business. He recently bought his neighbor’s farm.
 

“Prices now are terrific,” the farmer admits. “We’re going though some of the best times. Old farmers tell me: You’ll have only a couple of those in your life, you’d better enjoy them.”
 

The problem with the ethanol craze is that consumers are paying higher prices for food.
 

But Mohr believes the blame lies elsewhere. He says only 2% of the price of a box of cereal is actually paying for the corn that he grows in his fields.
 

“The rest of it is all the processing, the advertising. The box costs more than the corn that’s in it!”
 

That might be true in rich countries, but in poor countries, people still spend most of their salaries on food, and the products they buy are different.
 

“Many people in developing countries are buying the raw grain products: rice, corn to grind flour to make tortillas, etc,” says Janet Larsen, research director at the Earth Policy Institute in Washington.
 

When the prices of grain double, the price of food in poorer countries goes up dramatically.
 

Ronnie says that in any case the high prices won’t last, and in time will calm the ethanol frenzy.
 

“The cure for high prices is high prices. This will go the other way,” says the cautious farmer. “The other end of this won’t be pretty.”
 

Ethanol, then, may only be a transitional fuel.
 

Environmentalists suggest that even if the whole of the United States were planted with corn, the country would still not produce enough ethanol to replace the oil it consumes.