Earlier, we noted the usual ill-informed Lester Brown diatribe about food supply and the possible impact of corn and ethanol on food prices. You can read about it here, if you want to.
This week, our colleagues at the American Farm Bureau are celebrating Food Check-Out Week. You see, food has become more affordable lately, as this chart shows, when you compare xpenditures for food as a percentage of disposable income. Here’s the details from the USDA.
The Farm Bureau reports:
In comparison to working 37 days to pay for food, Americans worked 77 days to pay their federal taxes, 62 days to pay for housing/household operation, and 52 days for health/medical care, according to The Tax Foundation.
I don’t know about you but I Google for just about everything. Sure there are other search engines but I can usually find what I’m looking for with the G monster. So I thought it might be interesting to do a little search for some news about corn. Besides us, who else is posting corn info? This might become a regular post. Let me know what you think of the idea. Of course you can always email in links to ones you find interesting too.
Here’s an interesting piece from ABC-7 News about some high school students who converted their school bus in Immokalee, FL to run on corn oil.
Automotive Tech Teacher Phillip Wall challenged his students to convert the gas guzzling bus to run 100-percent on vegetable oil.
Students had to do a lot of research and even had to find vegetable oil from local restaurants.
They also created solar-powered hot tanks that separate the oil, so sediment will settle at the bottom – allowing clean vegetable oil to rise to the top for fueling the bus.
“It’s like, mission accomplished. We did something nobody has done. This is the first high school to do something,” said student Andres Garza.
Reports of the demise of the ethanol tariff in the new White House budget were apparently greatly exaggerated.
Despite hints from Energy Secretary Sam Bodman last week that changes might be made to the expiring U.S. ethanol import tariff in its new 2009 government budget that was sent to Congress on Monday, no such changes were included.
Reuters reports that an energy department spokesperson said while the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff is set to expire at the end of December during the 2009 budget year, which begins this October 1, the administration will have discussions with lawmakers later this year on what should be done with the tariff.
The tariff is designed to protect the U.S. ethanol industry from other countries taking advantage of the 51 cent per gallon blenders’ tax credit.
Indications are that the Bush administration will be making changes to the ethanol tariff in its budget to Congress scheduled to be released Monday. Earlier this week, Energy Secretary Sam Bodman hinted that the White House’s 2009 budget may propose scaling back or eliminating the 54-cent-a-gallon import tariff.
Bodman was quoted as saying the ethanol industry is “pretty close to being able to stand on its own” and compete with Brazil and other countries without domestic subsidies or protective tariffs.
However, National Corn Growers Association President Ron Litterer says with the volatility of the energy and ethanol markets, removing the tariff may be premature.
“The ethanol industry is going through some growing right now and I would think that we need to keep that in place for a time yet,” Litterer said in an interview with WNAX in Yankton, South Dakota.
He says there are dozens of plants currently coming on line that need the protection the tariff provides to U.S. ethanol. “Everybody understands that the ethanol industry is in a state of pretty rapid growth but yet the market access for ethanol is limited and we have to get through those kinds of issues first.”
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says removing the tariff would ultimately result in subsidizing Brazilian ethanol. “The United States already provides duty-free treatment for Brazilian ethanol that is merely dehydrated in the Caribbean Basin Initiative countries,” Grassley says. “Brazil has yet to make full use of this program. I don’t see why we should bend over backwards to provide yet more duty-free treatment for Brazil’s ethanol producers.”
NCGA has a wealth of information when it comes to the use of water in corn and ethanol, and one of the factoids we use is that the average-size ethanol plant uses about as much water as a municipal golf course.
Regarding this subject, I found this recent article from the Minnesota Corn Growers Association made a good point.
Snippet:
The ethanol industry used two billion gallons of water last year. The Environmental Quality Board has organized an Ethanol Work Group because that use rate may rise to five billion gallons. Golf courses utilized 5.6 billion gallons of groundwater in 2005. Isn’t it natural to ask: where is the Golf Course Work Group?
How much water have you seen wasted at golf courses or, worse, in landscaped areas that are set on timed sprinklers that go off even when it rains?
This week I paid a visit to the world headquarters of the National Corn Growers Association to meet with Mimi Ricketts and newcomer Jennifer Crichton. I got to see Rick’s new ride in person and took my own picture.
While I was there I recorded a short discussion with them about the whole Corn Commentary project. I think you’ll find it especially interesting in you work in communications at a company or other ag organization. For example, we talked about why Corn Commentary was created and if it’s accomplishing the objective. As Mimi says, it has allowed NCGA to write about some topics that wouldn’t fit on the NCGA.com website.
Another great feature is commenting. Many people have left comments here. That really helps make this an interactive website and that’s the intent.
If you’d like to hear our conversation, feel free:
Earlier, we noted the usual ill-informed Lester Brown diatribe about food supply and the possible impact of corn and ethanol on food prices. You can read about it here, if you want to.
Reports of the demise of the ethanol tariff in the new 
Indications are that the Bush administration will be making changes to the ethanol tariff in its budget to Congress scheduled to be released Monday. Earlier this week, Energy Secretary Sam Bodman hinted that the White House’s 2009 budget may propose scaling back or eliminating the 54-cent-a-gallon import tariff.
He says there are dozens of plants currently coming on line that need the protection the tariff provides to U.S. ethanol. “Everybody understands that the ethanol industry is in a state of pretty rapid growth but yet the market access for ethanol is limited and we have to get through those kinds of issues first.”
