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Within NFFC, the subject of ethanol has also provoked division, with some groups wanting an immediate end to all ethanol subsidies and others who believe biofuels offer some promise to our energy crisis. NFFC has an important role to play as one of the few farm organizations willing to question ethanol's benefits for farmers, while making sure our arguments are distinct from anti-ethanol agribusiness interests seeking a return to $2 cheap corn. Agribusiness's other big plan is to dismantle the Conservation Reserve Program, in a futile attempt to have us grow our way out of the food crisis. In Washington, a major schism has arisen in the big Ag community, with the National Corn Growers Association, American Farm Bureau and pro-ethanol interests battling against their normal partners-in-crime, the Grocery Manufacturers Association and livestock interests like the National Cattlemen Beef Association (NCBA) and the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC). The Bush Administration so far has sided with the pro-ethanol camp, with USDA attributing only 4% of food price increases to the increase in corn prices. Meanwhile, food processors and livestock corporations blame high corn prices and ethanol for shrinking their profits and cite a World Bank economist's estimates that 75% of the food price increase can be blamed on ethanol. The truth probably lies somewhat in between those numbers. Ethanol critics need to be wary before they jump aboard the anti-ethanol campaigns and let off the hook the real bad actors behind our food crisis. In May 2008, it was revealed in a DC paper that the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA) had hired Glover Park Group, a well-connected lobbying firm, to conduct a massive 6-month PR campaign to discredit ethanol and push for eliminating the Renewable Fuel Standards that call for 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022 and other ethanol subsidies. GMA members include Cargill, Coca-Cola, ConAgra and many more. The PR campaign would use anti-poverty, environmental and consumers groups to help "ring the alarm about diverting so much of our food to our fuel supplies." GMA, along with the American Meat Institute, Environmental Working Group and National Chicken Council, is also behind the "Food Before Fuel" lobbying campaign that in July 2008 conducted a press conference in Boston, Massachusetts featuring Representative James McGovern, Co-Chair of the House Hunger Caucus, denouncing ethanol mandates as behind the food crisis impacting so many hungry people in the world. Kraft Food also hired former longtime USDA economist Keith Collins to conduct a study showing 25-35% of food price increases were due to ethanol. Other states are also taking initiative at the behest of agribusiness interests. In June 2008, Texas governor Rick Perry requested that the Environmental Protection Agency grant his state a partial waiver from the RFS mandates. Perry then met privately with EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson in July, prompting an outcry from farm state Senators who fired off a letter to EPA warning them about the consequences of having an undemocratic backroom deal decide such an important policy matter. It was also revealed that Perry flew to DC at the expense of Pilgrim Pride CEO Lonnie Pilgrim. The chicken tycoon also donated $25,000 to Perry's political committee about a month after the waiver request was made and $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association, chaired by Perry. The EPA is now expected to make a decision in August. It's clear that those of us farmers who have questioned the viability of ethanol, both as a mechanism for raising commodity prices and helping us wean ourselves off foreign oil, need to be very clear in making our message distinct from the agribusiness interests who are busy coopting hunger and environmental groups. When corn was under $2 and wheat was under $3, we didn't hear much from the Grocery Manufacturers Association about how this was starving farmers and causing massive taxpayer bailouts to sustain the rural economy. When commodity prices collapse again, will the likes of Pilgrim's Pride and Coca-Cola lower the cost of food to reflect this fact? Already, General Mills (makers of Yoplait yogurt) reported profits up 61% over the previous quarter. National Beef, one of the nation's largest beef processors, reported in July a whopping 429% increase in profits over the same time period in May. Thus, blaming higher commodity prices as the root of the food crisis means attention is shifted away from the real corporate profiteers making money off millions of hungry people. It is clear we can't count on these anti-ethanol interests to put their millions towards reviving a system of price supports and grain reserves so we could actually have stable markets that ensure people around the world have access to affordable food and ensure farmers can make a living without relying on taxpayer subsidies.
Mike Folkerth is the author of "The Biggest Lie Ever Believed" and is not your run-of-the-mill author of finance and economics.
This is a complex issue and far too many important factors are not considered in this article. Ethanol in my studied opinion is nothing more than a political tool being used in the age of both green options and fuel shortages of which it solves neither. Ethanol, when all factors are considered, is an energy negative product. The amount of water, fuel, fertilizer, and the resulting soil depletion necessary for the production of corn ethanol certainly rule out the "green" concept. Both beef and pork prices were reported as being down on national markets yesterday. Packers were reported as having a surplus of "overweights" and have slowed buying. One rancher that I spoke with had his cattle fail to reach minimum at auction just yesterday. And finally, if every available acre of cropland in the U.S. were converted to corn ethanol production, it would provide approximately 14% of the auto fuel alone that we consume in the U.S. No food, just fuel. by
Mike Folkerth (120 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 566 comments)
on Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 10:11:46 AM
I'm a mother and grandmother. There is no way I can leave my family or anyone else's children, things as they are now.
Good of you to write. Yes, this is a complex issue and Naylor and Lin's article is NOT pro-ethanol. I'm trying to put out material so liberals can start educating themselves. You know a lot already and anything you can do to write on farming and how much threat it is now under and who is responsible and who is benefitting, would be much appreciated. It's critical that the left wakes up to what is being stolen out from under all of us and starts putting energy into stopping NAIS and the JBS Swift merger, and starts taking farming for the central political issue of our day - which it is. Please write more about all this, and try your best to get people here to realize how critical things are and that corporations are taking control of food, plant DNA, land, fish and water, worldwide. Thanks. by
Linn Cohen-Cole (18 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 63 comments)
on Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 1:04:54 PM
it's not complex at all and your comment shows the problems of the issue at hand, and how the corporate script has been running the show for so long. they started this months ago, and have brought it up again. corn ethanol is not as good as it could be, but it is producing a profit, and it is a cleaner source of fuel. not to mention, that the alternative is OIL, and foreign oil at that, which is shipped on dirty tankers, the refining process is dirty...we know big oil by now... while corn can use up lots of fertilizer and chemicals, one needn't farm it that way, when producing it for ethanol or fuel (corn-buring stoves). in places in the midwest, where corn grows very well, they can use whatever crops they feel are the best solution to their energy needs. and this is the deal--we are researching on many other sources of ethanol and biofuels other than corn. alfafa, which has been virtually unused as a feedstock for cattle, was used in-between crops because it was a nitrogen fixer--it pulls nitrogen right out of the air, making it unnecessary to use fertilizers. alfafa, along with the perennial switchgrass (getting lots of looking at here in the cheasapeake watershed), and other types of crops, are being researched for cellulosic sourced biofuel--switchgrass alone has shown to yield 3 times the amount of fuel per acre as corn--and without any added fertilizers or insecticides, or having to even buy seeds every year. the truth is, corn biofuel production went from under 50 million gallons a year, to over 400 million gallons a year, from 2005 to 2007. that's not because of some EPA requirement (as our silly republican leaders would have us believe) or because of bad investments--it's because the price of a of oil is over $100 a barrel! the article does have it right, that the real costs of production for the GMA (that's Cargill who needs cheap corn prices for feed, as well as Pepsi and Coke who need cheap corn syrup for their happy juice) are coming from prodcution, and distribution--and that's coming from oil being expensive, not corn prices. i know it is somewhat complex, but here's why: we have two competing lobbying/corporate groups fighting each other for the battle of public opinion: Big Corn Producers vs. Grocery Manufacturers--Conagra vs. Tyson, etc. it is not complex, that as the american people decide what is best for our economy, our green economy, our energy sources, and sustainable agriculutre, one thing is very, very simple: WE MUST NOT FOLLOW THE CORPORATE SCRIPT! by
kenshin (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 30 comments)
on Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 12:53:45 PM
Ethanol! Ethanol is but one part of the struggle to remove ourselves from oil dependance/addiction. There is absolutely no way that it should be derived from food sources or grown on food producing lands. As I have said many times there are crops(switch grass and others) that are capable of producing far more ethanol per acre and can be grown on non-food producing lands. If we keep attacking ethanol per se we will be in effect "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". Ethanol is needed if we are to reduce or eliminate oil as a major part of our diet. Attack the source of the ethanol(corn, growers and promoters) and not the product. As usual our dysfunctional government is leading the way towards destroying our food source by "encouraging" the mostly "corporate" farms to make much more money by selling their corn to ethanol producers and leaving us to starve. Impeachment is the only answer to most all of our problems! by
Hayesml47 (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 502 comments)
on Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 10:22:06 AM
I'm a mother and grandmother. There is no way I can leave my family or anyone else's children, things as they are now.
Please reread the article. There are a lot of forces at play here. This article is good for educating people on who is driving things and who has what to gain, and how environmental groups are being used in the game by corporations who have their own stake in things. This article is a beginning to watching what is going on. As I just wrote to Mr. Folkerth, you seem to know something about the issues. Please write more but as you do so, would you do your best to link it to farmers themselves and the impact on them. However possible, we need to make liberals aware of what is happening to our farmers and that the drive to eliminate independent farmers is a threat to us all. To get purely and abstractly focused on energy in any way (corn or switchgrass or other ...), and not keep an eye on the ball - saving farmers and ranchers - is beyond dangerous. The ball is independent farmers, not energy. With enough independent farmers, we will be safe at lots of levels as we solve the energy issues, but lose those farmers and we are in the hands of corporations and there's no turning back. Please write about American farming for all you are worth. Thanks for commenting here. by
Linn Cohen-Cole (18 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 63 comments)
on Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 1:14:55 PM
Oh, What a tangled web we weave. The biggest problem with the government getting involved with economic manipulation is that once they are in the game they can never get out. I am not sure if you are familiar with W. Edwards Deming, the managemant guru that made Japan what it is today? Basically one of his teachings was to make only small chamges to move towards the desired destination but only after envolving everyone the system in question touches. Obviously our government does not go by Deming's teachings. Case in point the government helps farmers to get better prices by paying them to not grow certain products in order to drive up the value. They do this without bothering to adjust for droughts, bug invasions, or other disasters(such as sending tons of our grain to international disaster locations). The only way they make changes is for a major disaster to occur in our economy that this system has affected. But to continue once this gravy train was in place our military industrail complex/major corporations did not take long to sniff this mega billions industry out. Net result is the vast majority of our real farmers have been bought out and another "monopoly" is formed to run our government for us. Ethanol is just another episode in the continuing sucking sound coming out of DC. What I would like to see as far as ethanol is concerned would be the cutting out of corporate farms for any of this gravy train and the promotion/involvement of the few real farmers we have left in using the millions of acres of prairelands (a lot of which the government owns) to grow the natural grasses that produce ethanol more efficiently than corn. How we get around the Washington conspirators is another part of the problem which one of the reasons why we need impeachment so badly. Along with impeachment we need to organize as much of the population as we can and vote out almost all of the incumbents this November. The only way I see us being able to get back to We, the People, running our government will be to keep voting out the incumbents until they pass real ethics rules, term limits for judges, Congresspersons, and many others, plus wealth monitoring for all officials to curb bribes and lobbyists. I hope I have covered this well enough. I do not know if Mike warned you about my disabilities(MS, Diabetes, Sarcoidosis, Arthritus, acid refux, and others) which do affect my abilities to get my knowledge out for human consumption. Oh yeah, I do have a wierd sense of humor too! If you would like to talk more on this I am willing and somewhat able to continue as long as you wish. I have 61+years of very wide and varied experiences and do enjoy sharing them with others. Have yourself a good one Linn! by
Hayesml47 (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 502 comments)
on Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 7:39:27 PM
I'm a mother and grandmother. There is no way I can leave my family or anyone else's children, things as they are now.
Very interesting about Deming. Like with chaos theory - small initial inputs have such reiterative effects .... Mike? You have a stellar idea about letting ethanol only go to real family farmers and none to corporate farms, but you are right again about how we'd have to take apart the whole monopoly system to get there. But along those lines, I suggest you check out http://www.competitivemarkets.com/, a group of cattlemen and businessmen (and women) who are taking on JBS Swift which is seeking a massive merger in the beef industry that would give them control over ... 80%? 90%? some astronomical percentage of beef in the world, all vertically integrated, and capable of destroying the last independent ranchers out there. They are also taking on Monsanto. (I tried to insert a link to an article I wrote on this but the formatting keeps screwing up. Look up During a world food crisis, Monsanto just raised the price of its corn seed $100 a bag.) If there is ONE thing we could do to make a difference in terms of going after corporate monopolies, in my opinion it would be to join OCM and send the money and get others to join and send money. They are for real competition and they are serious about the level at which they are going after it. I'm just delighted to see the comments here and appreciate your sending yours. Hope you'll drop in and write more on farming because we are in a lot of trouble and need to wake up liberals who haven't a clue that farming is central to everything and about to be gone - except as a corporate entity with which they can do whatever they will to any of us. by
Linn Cohen-Cole (18 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 63 comments)
on Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 10:19:13 PM
Teddy Roosevelt! If I could bring just one of our former presidents back into office it would have to be TR. He had the guts and courage to breakup the robber barons monopolies at a time when they were threatening to swallow our country, government and all. That was very much like our time except this time is much worse. If we are not successful at breaking up most all of the large corporations(those that control our farming industry and the military industrial complex) then we might as well get ready for a "Rollerball" scenario because that is precisely where we are heading. Neither Bush or Cheney would have gotten away with anjy of their misdeeds if it had not been for the corporate conglomerates that have been eating up almost every industry we have. They are the ones who have been sending our jobs overseas and buying most of our food and products from Asia. I do not know who to fear more, the mega corps here or the foreign countries who have our very survival in their hands. It does not take very much of an imagination to see more conspiracies afoot than seem humanly possible. It is no wonder we are turning into phsycotic paranoids. Hope this does not mess up your day too much! Try to take it easy and then start asking your friends and acquaintences to vote out most all incumbents in Congress. It is the only way we have left of taking back Our country! by
Hayesml47 (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 502 comments)
on Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 9:10:33 AM
Biofuels! Biofuels, no matter where we can obtain them from, as long as it does not affect food or other needs of life, are certainly welcome. This is one of the needed renewable energy sources we must be looking into. If our government(and us) really want to stop our dependence on oil(and oil companies) it needs to invest and incourage development in these areas as well as giving incentives to consumers to really start using some or all of the alternatives. by
Hayesml47 (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 502 comments)
on Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 9:48:42 PM
I'm a mother and grandmother. There is no way I can leave my family or anyone else's children, things as they are now.
The thing to keep your eye on is not so much what is the most reasonable plan but what is being done, with any plan, to destroy American farming. In all the articles I'm trying to put out, the part I hope people will start to develop is an overview of what is going on and a deep personal concern for our farmers and ranchers. We can discuss all we want and come up with sane ideas, but insane people are running things and we have to start seeing what they are doing in large terms and work with those who have that big picture and are smart about how to push back. Can't recommend OCM highly enough. Join. Be part of a serious effort to reverse the disaster we are in. Thanks a lot for writing. by
Linn Cohen-Cole (18 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 63 comments)
on Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 10:24:28 PM
A National Food Policy? World Food Policy? We have all kinds of government policies on everything from energy to health, yet the US does not have a 'National Food Policy.' To take food from the mouth of a chlid to fill someone's gasoline tank with it is uncivilized and cruel. Famine and the resulting death and sickness it brings leads to plagues that kill entirely too many individuals unnecessarily. You are utlimately only as healthy as your neighbor. The coming food crisis doesn't have to be as bad as looks to become. There's not much time. If we can't get the dialogue started here at home, then let's take it to the UN and formulate a 'World Food Policy.' It will require our best brains from a variety of disciplines, and concessions - some painful - to be made by all. by
Amanda Lang (23 articles, 13845 quicklinks, 431 diaries, 593 comments)
on Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 2:30:34 PM
I'm a mother and grandmother. There is no way I can leave my family or anyone else's children, things as they are now.
It sounds good in theory because you're a decent person and have expectations that others are, but the ones who have brought us where we are would be delighted to devise a World Food Policy and take more control. Is that not what the FAO has been doing and the WTO and the IMF and the World Bank? We are in the hands of multinational corporations who have got agriculture by the throat. We don't need another "global" policy but to start undoing a series of international "agreements" (if you want to call things signed under duress, agreements) such as NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, the Codex Alimentarius, etc. We need to stop giving one iota more power to governments to control things. The push to give only monetary aid for food aid is a step in the right direction, but a larger one would be undoing intellectual property laws that apply to agriculture - plants, animals, fish ... And we need laws to break up corporate monopolies. Thanks for writing. Hope you'll comment often. And about OCM, here's a snapshot of something they just did: Here's a snapshot of what they are about: Even the list price on seed corn will topple the $300 per bag barrier starting this fall, up about $95 to $100 per bag, or 35 percent on average, according to Monsanto officials who met with DTN and Progressive Farmer editors this week.For 2009, 76 percent of the company's corn sales will be triple stack, 'so we think we can get the pricing right to show farmers the benefits,' John Jansen, Monsanto's by
Linn Cohen-Cole (18 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 63 comments)
on Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 10:36:36 PM
I think that all people must be held accountable for their actions under the law. Everyone must be treated the same under International Law, National Laws, and Local Laws, NO EXCEPTIONS! ----- Let only God enforce the laws created by God and let Humans only enforce the laws created by Humans. ----- www.CitizenAmendments.org ----- I support the Mike Gravel National Initiative for Democracy (WWW.NI4D.US) -----
How much gas does Ethanol save? A friend of mine told me that his gas mileage went from over 36 miles/gallon of gas to less than 30 miles/gallon of 10% Ethanol gas. 36 miles/gallon of gas = 0.02778 gallons/mile of gas. 30 miles/gallon of gas+ethanol = 0.03333 gallons/mile of gas and ethanol. If it is assumed that the gas contains 10% ethanol, the advertised maximum. 30 Miles/gallon of gas+ethanol = 0.029997 gallons/mile of gas and 0.003333 gallons/mile of ethanol. This means that with the addition of ethanol, an additional 0.002217 gallons/mile of gas is used compared to non-ethanol gas. In other words, there is a net energy loss. Has anyone done an official mileage test on 10% Ethanol vs. Non-Ethanol gas? by
Anton Grambihler (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 297 comments)
on Monday, July 28, 2008 at 11:23:42 AM
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