Sometimes the world is just so sick that even I can’t laugh at it. Though perhaps I am overly sensitive due to the fact that food is near and dear to my heart.

What ever the reason, I can find no humor in the fact that this country subsidizes the burning of food for fuel while at the same time slapping such heavy environmental regulations on fuel that farmers are facing shortages. This from Fox News…

NEW YORK — Fuel shortages in the U.S. Midwest are raising concerns corn farmers may have trouble harvesting their bumper crop this autumn.

Farmers planted the largest corn crop since 1944 last spring after prices hit a 10-year high of $4.37 a bushel in early 2007. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has estimated a record crop of more than 13 billion bushels.

But farmers said supplies of the ultra low sulfur diesel needed for harvesting equipment are running low, particularly in the corn-growing regions of Minnesota, Nebraska, and Iowa.

In Iowa, fuel shortages are anticipated as retailers report having only about 80 percent of their normal supply, said John Scott, a corn and soy farmer in west central Iowa.

“Worse case scenario is our crop stands in the field until we have fuel to harvest it,” said Scott, who has stored about one week’s supply of fuel in anticipation of shortages, but not enough to tide him over for the six-week harvest season.

Curt Watson, the President of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, said the fuel terminal that usually supplies his area is dry. His supplier has to drive to another area, where long lines with a wait of four hours are not uncommon.