USDA Comes to the Food Versus Fuel Table

“We think the time has come for USDA to join in the public conversation about the relationship between food prices and biofuels,” said Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer during a Monday morning press briefing. “We want to offer our perspective and what has happened in the marketplace, to share our data and the analysis of what has happened.”

Presenting the data was USDA chief economist Dr. Joe Glauber, who pointed out all the factors that have contributed to higher food prices in the last year including economic growth, weather, export restrictions, higher food marketing and transportation costs, and finally, increases in biofuels.

An economic analysis of the pass-through for an increase in corn prices on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows that a 50 percent increase in corn prices raises the CPI less than one percent, but Glauber says, “It’s a difficult thing to sort out how much of the increase in corn prices was necessarily due to ethanol.”

However, he says the Council of Economic Advisers estimates the total global increase in corn-based ethanol production accounts for only about three percent of the recent increase in global food prices.

Link to USDA power point presentation slides.