The Grocery Manufacturers Association’s well-funded smear campaign against corn ethanol might just boomerang. We all know their clear-cut goal: rolling back the renewable fuels standard and they have embarked on a massive disinformation campaign to turn the tide of support on renewable energy.
Yet the facts remain and they are being reported in the media. Our media trolling this weekend found these worthwhile stories:
From the Grand Island Independent, a story that points out the crop prices have indeed risen, and so have corn farmers’ costs. For example, compared to a year ago in Nebraska, gasoline prices have risen 45 cents per gallon and diesel has gone up $1.36 per gallon.
Moving over the Omaha, the World-Herald chose to run a story highlighting the efforts of NCGA CEO Rick Tolman who reminds readers ethanol was never intendend to supplant to the entire fuel stream.
The Grand Rapids Press has clearly seen through the hype and furor and reminds its readers that “Painting ethanol as the Dracula of world humanitarian efforts is wrong and dangerous to our economy.” The editorial rightly points to the soaring price of oil, increased global demand, and market speculators as drivers for higher corn prices and demand.
Over in Wisconsin, the Journal Sentinal ran a piece by farmer and Wisconsin Corn Growers Association executive Bob Oelson who shares several unreported facts, and reminds readers that corn ethanol leads us on the path to other renewable fuels.
Outside the Corn Belt and inside the Beltway, the Washington Times reported Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer’s strong stance against UN and other international aid officials who claim ethanol is to blame for a global food crisis. His retort these claims: They are “flat out wrong.”
Don’t be fooled by the GMA. They, too, are suffering from higher transporation and manufacturing costs due to rising oil prices. And you know what? They can’t do anything about that. What they think they can do is reverse the RFS and then still pass along high prices.
The basics of agriculture and food production should be a required course for the media. They just don’t get it.
At a recent press conference in Washington DC, National Corn Growers Association CEO Rick Tolman attempted to explain the difference between field corn and sweet corn to the media. “The kind of corn we produce that goes into ethanol is not the corn that you eat, it’s not corn on the cob or creamed corn,” he said. “Last year we had 85 million harvested acres of field corn producing 13.1 billion bushels or 366 million tons valued at about $52 billion. On the sweet corn side, it was 631,000 acres valued at about a billion dollars.”
During the question and answer time, one reporter asked, “Isn’t it fair to argue that food prices are increasing because land that would be devoted for food corn is being switched to grow ethanol corn?”
Patiently, Tolman explained that the areas that grow sweet corn are primarily devoted to growing sweet corn because they feed into completely different processing and distribution channels. “You don’t grow corn just for ethanol,” he explained. “The field corn is grown and the farmer sells it to whoever gives him the best price - livestock, export or ethanol plant. For sweet corn, it can only go to sweet corn.”
Tolman further explained that he would find it hard to believe that any farmer who grows sweet corn would switch to growing field corn, since sweet corn sells for a much higher price.
However, the reporter still didn’t get it and cornered Rick after the conference saying, “Why don’t I understand this?” Rick proceeded to give him a more detailed explanation. Maybe he does now, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
Now here is a rare commodity - an article about high food prices that doesn’t mention ethanol or biofuels even once!
The story is from the Catholic News Service and the author is Barbara Fraser. She mentions drought, high oil prices and increased demand as causing higher prices - but not production of biofuels. But rather than dwelling on the blame game, the article talks about what needs to be done to address the problem.
The focus of the article is the need to help the poor in other countries with long-term policies that include “increased investment in agriculture and development and more consistent international trade policies.”
Lisa Kuennen, director of the public resource group at Catholic Relief Services, said developing countries also must connect small farmers with markets, help people diversify their sources of income so they are not as vulnerable to volatile food prices, and implement land reform.
“It seems so obvious: With so much corn being turned into fuel, food shortages must inevitably result, and biofuel programs must be the cause. However, that’s completely untrue.”
The increased demand for food from the hundreds of millions of people in China and India rising out of poverty and moving to a more calorie-rich diet affects the price of food the most. Second is the price of fuel.
The editorial is written by “Energy Victory” author Robert Zubrin and Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, both members of the Set America Free Coalition which is concerned about the national security and economic implications of America’s growing dependence on foreign oil.
They rightly note that the real culprit in high food prices is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. “This year, with OPEC-rigged oil prices exceeding $100 a barrel, the U.S. will pay $800 billion for its oil supply, and the world as a whole will pay $3.2 trillion. These figures are both up a factor of 10 from what they were in 1999 and represent a huge regressive tax on the world economy.”
So, rather than shut down biofuel programs, we need to radically augment them, to the point where we can take down the oil cartel. Congress can make this happen by passing a law requiring that all new cars sold in the U.S. be flex-fuel vehicles that can run on any combination of gasoline, ethanol or methanol. The technology costs only about $100 per vehicle.
They conclude, “That, and not blindly accepting the naysayers’ propaganda demanding the preservation of the oil monopoly, should be our course.”
Thanks to Mark Lambert with the Illinois Corn Growers for sending us the story.
Why are food prices on the increase? Illinois Farm Bureau has created a new website to provide consumers with the proper answers. Farmingforyou.org discusses and explains the five major reasons food prices are on the rise.
National Corn Growers Association CEO Rick Tolman offered testimony in support of the national Renewable Fuels Standard during a hearing Tuesday before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality.
“This policy has been critical to the growth and economic development of rural America and has added value to our product which for so long has been priced below the cost of production,” Tolman told the subcommittee.
“Recently many critics have questioned the value and consequences of the Renewable Fuels Standard, they are quick to point to biofuels as the primary reason for global food increases,” said Tolman. “A look at the facts surrounding food prices simply doesn’t support that logic. The effects of $120 a barrel oil have far more reaching effects on consumer prices for food. Petroleum is used in virtually every step of the supply chain that begins with the farmer and ends at the consumer’s table. In fact, just 19 cents of every consumer dollar can be attributed to the actual cost of farm products.”
With a oil at (yet again!) a new record high today of $122 per barrel, would-be parents might want to think about the implications a little one will have on their pocketbooks.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources estimates each person uses about 7,800 pounds of petroleum a year–more than 28 barrels of oil. In a lifetime, each American will use 585,000 pounds or 2,100 barrels of petroleum.
At $122 per barrel that’s $256,200 per person. Where’s all that petroleum going, you ask?
Well Little Johnny’s diapers are composed of 30 percent petroleum and if he’s like the average baby, he is going to go through nearly 6,000 diapers before being potty trained. More than 50 pounds of petroleum feedstocks are used to produce disposable diapers for Little Johnny. That’s one-fifth of a barrel per year.
By the time Little Johnny turns 10, he will have used about 730 crayons to draw and color with. Those crayons contain paraffin wax, a petroleum product.
Toothpaste, deodorant, cologne and detergents all contain petroleum products, and families buy these in abundance. Deodorant, for example, contains synthetic fragrances, of which 95 percent are made from petroleum. And if every family replaced just one 28-ounce bottle of petroleum based dish detergent with a vegetable-based product we could save 82,000 barrels of oil
Then the teen years hit and Little Johnny’s cell phone, computer and cars all gobble up petroleum in the form of plastics and fuel.
Keep in mind though, that what you can make with petroleum chemicals you can make with ethanol chemicals–and in a cleaner, greener manner.
Corn ethanol is starting to look a little bloody and battered lately – a bit like Rocky Balboa at the end of the original 1976 movie.
Like Rocky, corn ethanol has always been “a million to one shot” underdog. Like Apollo Creed, the oil industry is cocky and undefeated. The Renewable Fuels Standard is ethanol’s World Heavyweight Championship. The question now is, will Congress stand by the legislation and let ethanol go all 15 rounds, or will it end the match prematurely?
In the movie, Creed initially takes the fight lightly, but Rocky unexpectedly knocks him down in the first round and the match turns intense. Sounds a bit like what is happening here. Big Oil thought Little Ethanol was just a pushover – now they are pulling no punches in trying to knock out the underdog.
Like Rocky, the ethanol industry doesn’t expect to “win” the fight – there is no way that ethanol can replace all the imported foreign oil that we use in this country. But, this little industry is a contender and does want to survive – to help rural communities prosper and to do something to at least reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Rocky may have ultimately lost the fight in a split decision at the end of the original film, but there were five sequels. In the second, Rocky beats the champ in the end.
Yo, Adrian! Let’s hope it doesn’t take a sequel to do it.
One of the benefits of the Internet is that traditional media can use it for projects that just don’t technologically fit with their format. Here’s a fascinating example from the New York Times, especially when we’re looking at this debate over food prices.
You can drill down into each piece of this pie chart, wherein you learn that fuel prices have increased much more dramatically between 2007 and 2008 than food prices. And the chart itself says … “The high price of oil is a factor that has made food prices rise quickly.”
Along with this clever illustration, Carey makes the point that corn ethanol “isn’t quite the villain critics make it out to be,” especially with regard to food prices.
“Biofuels are a very, very small factor” in rising food costs, says David Morris, vice-president of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit group that tries to strengthen communities politically and economically around the world. Absent corn ethanol, food prices would still be up dramatically because of soaring global demand, fast-rising prices for oil and natural gas used to make fertilizer, and climatic factors such as Australia’s drought. It’s also worth noting that these high crop prices save taxpayers billions of dollars in reduced subsidies to farmers—far more than is spent to subsidize ethanol.
Certainly, a rapid rise in food prices brings misery to poor countries. But over the long haul, “it’s not obvious that high grain prices are inherently bad,” asserts Nathanael Greene, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Years of cheap, subsidized grain in the U.S. and Europe have left farmers in the developing world unable to compete. They can’t invest in better seed, machinery, or cultivation practices (page 26). As a result, global average yields for corn, wheat, and rice are less than half what the world’s top 10% of farmers achieve. While American corn farmers produce 150 bushels per acre, farms in the developing world often get only 30. “If there is a crime against humanity, it is these low yields,” not biofuels, says Richard Hamilton, CEO of Ceres Inc., a Thousand Oaks (Calif.) startup developing biofuel crops. Those low yields will improve if farmers make more money. In the long term, “high prices will lead these countries to produce more of their own food,” says Morris, easing the supply shortages.
Lots more in this balanced article - read it yourself here - and add your voice to the comments, many of which continue to be anti-corn ethanol.
At a recent press conference in Washington DC, National Corn Growers Association CEO Rick Tolman attempted to explain the difference between field corn and sweet corn to the media. “The kind of corn we produce that goes into ethanol is not the corn that you eat, it’s not corn on the cob or creamed corn,” he said. “Last year we had 85 million harvested acres of field corn producing 13.1 billion bushels or 366 million tons valued at about $52 billion. On the sweet corn side, it was 631,000 acres valued at about a billion dollars.”
The 
The editorial is written by “Energy Victory” author Robert Zubrin and Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, both members of the 
“This policy has been critical to the growth and economic development of rural America and has added value to our product which for so long has been priced below the cost of production,” Tolman told the subcommittee.
Like Rocky, corn ethanol has always been “a million to one shot” underdog. Like Apollo Creed, the oil industry is cocky and undefeated. The Renewable Fuels Standard is ethanol’s World Heavyweight Championship. The question now is, will Congress stand by the legislation and let ethanol go all 15 rounds, or will it end the match prematurely?
Along with this clever illustration, Carey makes the point that corn ethanol “isn’t quite the villain critics make it out to be,” especially with regard to food prices.