I must admit a guilty pleasure … reading Parade magazine when it comes out in my Sunday newspaper. It does a great job of packaging the most generally interesting trivia around. The magazine’s Intelligence Reportsection (second item) has been a little off lately in its treatment of biofuels, but this past weekend there was a whopper of a factoid:
Food prices are rising, but your grocery bill might be lower if you weren’t paying for an estimated $20 billion worth of food that supermarkets throw away each year. Stores in the U.S. waste twice as much food annually as those in Europe, and a recent U.N. report found that total American food waste—including what we pitch from our refrigerators—is worth $48 billion each year.
Among the culprits cited is the high cost of transporation from farm to store, an average of 1,500 miles. This is a topic we’d love to see more on, and one can only hope that a system can be devised to get spare food into hungry hands.
At least someone seems to be interested. The Parade item mentions a writer doing a book and blog on wasted food.
One of the findings in a Farm Foundation study being released today is that oil is ultimately behind the increase in corn prices.
As Purdue agricultural economist Wally Tyner explains it, “Higher oil price means higher gasoline price, higher gasoline price means more demand for ethanol because ethanol is a substitute for gasoline, and the higher ethanol demand means more demand for corn and more demand for corn means higher corn prices.” The result has been that the price of crude oil and the price of corn are now linked, Tyner says, which is a revolution for global agriculture.
“What’s Driving Food Prices?” was written by Tyner and two other Purdue University economists. Another interesting finding in the report is that China and India have less of an impact on food prices than many believe. “While many studies focus attention on China and India, neither country is a major trader of most agricultural commodities. However, China’s rapidly growing oil imports have
had an indirect effect on food prices by impacting world prices for crude oil.”
“We commissioned this report to provide a comprehensive, objective assessment of the forces driving food prices,” said Farm Foundation president Wallace Conklin. “It is the intent of Farm Foundation that the information will help all stakeholders meet the challenge to address one of the most critical public policy issues facing the world today.”
A coalition of commodity groups in Texas has put together a clever and informative website to clean up the misinformation about higher food prices.
TexasPriceCheck.com provides a number of facts, reports, research and statements from a wide variety of reputable sources indicating that rising energy costs have affected the cost of everything from farm production to food processing to getting food to the grocery store. Yeah, okay - anybody can do that. But they do it in a pretty unique and interactive way.
The site features an animated grocery conveyor belt, which allows visitors to click on food items to learn the farmer’s share of the retail price for bread, corn flakes, peanut butter and other food staples. Another animation depicts an innocent grocery cart that meets a tragic end in the “reality aisle.” A number of Texas icons such as Cadillac Ranch and a Texas license plate are featured, as well in a context related to food prices.
Even better, the Web site is being promoted in a variety of ways across Texas. Billboards feature a grocery cart being threatened by an oil pump jack and provide the Web address for consumers to learn more. Newspaper ads in major markets are planned, as well as a radio campaign later this fall.
The consumer education initiative is being funded by the Texas Peanut Producers Board, Texas Corn Producers Board, and the Texas Wheat Producers Board. Check it out!
Statistics can be made to prove anything - even the truth.
While the report out of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) this week found that biofuel production “has a limited impact on reducing greenhouse gases and improving energy security, and has a significant impact on world crop prices” the statistics in the report actually tell a different story.
For example, OECD credits ethanol produced from corn starch with a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions if using natural gas, a 50% reduction in GHG if the facility is powered by biomass, and 80% for sugarcane ethanol. That’s better than ZERO for fossil fuels - certainly not “limited.”
The modeling included in the report suggests that a 28% drop in world oil prices would cause a 12% reduction in world coarse grain prices ($0.75 per bushel in the case of corn today), underscoring the fact that skyrocketing oil prices are the largest driver behind increasing grain prices. By contrast, removing biofuel mandates like the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) would reduce coarse grain prices by just 1% ($0.06 per bushel of corn). Even abandoning all biofuels policies would only yield an average coarse grain price reduction of 7% ($0.45 per bushel).
The OECD report itself says the “impact of current biofuel policies on world crop prices, largely through increased demand for cereals and vegetable oils, is significant but should not be overestimated.” Guess that depends on your definition of “significant.” Sounds like oil prices have a much more significant impact which is consistently being not only UNDERestimated but virtually ignored.
Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are much more pliable.
A Houston Chronicle articles traces Texas Governor Rick Perry’s request for a waiver of the Renewable Fuels Standard back to a March 25 meeting with Lonnie “Bo” Pilgrim, owner of Pilgrim’s Pride, the country’s largest chicken producer.
Shortly after that meeting, Pilgrim donated $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association, which is chaired by Perry. Pilgrim’s Pride also generously donated its lobbyists and public relations firm to help Perry’s staff finalize the details of waiver request, which was submitted on April 25.
Pilgrim’s Pride, which owns 25 percent of the US poultry market, had net sales of nearly $7.6 billion last year, with a gross profit of about $600 million. According to their last annual report, the company still managed to make a significant profit despite higher feed costs. In fact, their gross profit for fiscal 2007 increased $293.9 million, or 98.8%, over fiscal 2006.
Doesn’t sound like they are suffering too much from higher feed costs.
Missouri and Kansas may be rivals on the football field but they are on the same team when it comes to the “food versus fuel” issue.
The Missouri Corn Merchandising Council teamed up with the Kansas Corn Commission and the Renewable Fuels Now Coalition for a targeted radio campaign in the Kansas City region. The 30-second spots have been airing on KCFX, KCMO, WHB and KMBZ feature a radio host called “The Food Dude” answering callers’ questions about higher food prices. This air-time was paid for with corn grower checkoff funds and is operating under the Renewable Fuels Now Coalition banner. The educational radio efforts will run through July 1.
These radio spots include a space at the end for local taglines and are available for use by request from the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC) in Omaha. Listen to the “Food Dude” spot here:
When the representatives from the National Corn Growers Association met with officials from the Grocery Manufacturers Association recently to talk about their anti-ethanol campaign, they not only refused to back down, they warned that the attack was just beginning and would intensify.
Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa says GMA is starting a new ad campaign that is expected to be a “tearjerker.”
“Kids starving to death, doing an injustice to the environment - it’s going to be an all-out effort because they have to protect their bottomline,” Grassley says. “They have to have an excuse for increasing the price of their food. Forget all these altruistic things. It’s another Adolph Hitler lie, the bigger the lie, the more people are to believe it. And it’s easy to lie when people are ignorant about ethanol.”
Grassley says he understands that former Congressman Cal Dooley, who is CEO of GMA, would like to meet with him. He hopes that meeting will take place because he has plenty to say to him.
There is a GREAT promotion and radio campaign underway in Iowa that should be duplicated all over the country.
It’s called “Join the Ride,” under the auspices of Iowa Farm Bureau, and it includes a great website with energy facts and other information, as well as a wonderful radio spot and promotion to win $1500 in free ethanol.
Listen to the radio spot here:
You have to listen to it to get the full impact, but here is a transcript:
“Hi, I’m Wink Davis and this is ‘Pass the Buck,’ the game show where everyone’s to blame but yourself. Let’s welcome back our champion for the last 80 years - the oil industry! How ya doin’ Big Oil?”
“Never better, Wink.”
“Well, here’s your first question - the rise in oil prices are responsible for the majority of our rising food costs. How…?”
“Wasn’t us - we were out of town last year.”
“Eww, sorry, doesn’t look like anyone’s going to believe that.”
“I’ll try a misdirect, Wink - poor, starving children.”
“Nice try, but hunger is caused by political unrest and weather, not rising food costs.”
“Let’s try blaming that ETHANOL stuff.”
“Ooo, interesting tactic. Even though ethanol is actually keeping fuel costs down by up to 50 cents a gallon and corn production for food is up 26 percent, people might actually buy it …. oh, sorry Oil, looks like you couldn’t pull the wool over America’s eyes this time.”
“France - we’ll blame France - nobody likes France.”
“Don’t believe their hype. Rising oil costs is the number one contributor to high food costs which affect us all. Learn more. Visit Join the Ride Iowa.com and win a chance for $1500 in free ethanol. Brought to you by the Iowa Farm Bureau.”
The head of the U.N.’s climate agency (UNFCCC) rejected the idea that carbon-cutting biofuels should be banned, after helping drive up food prices by using crops such as corn to make an ethanol alternative to gasoline.
“I think biofuels are a very important part of the solution,” de Boer said.
One of the findings in a 
“We commissioned this report to provide a comprehensive, objective assessment of the forces driving food prices,” said Farm Foundation president Wallace Conklin. “It is the intent of Farm Foundation that the information will help all stakeholders meet the challenge to address one of the most critical public policy issues facing the world today.”
The site features an animated grocery conveyor belt, which allows visitors to click on food items to learn the farmer’s share of the retail price for bread, corn flakes, peanut butter and other food staples. Another animation depicts an innocent grocery cart that meets a tragic end in the “reality aisle.” A number of Texas icons such as Cadillac Ranch and a Texas license plate are featured, as well in a context related to food prices.
While the 
Shortly after that meeting, Pilgrim donated $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association, which is chaired by Perry. Pilgrim’s Pride also generously donated its lobbyists and public relations firm to help Perry’s staff finalize the details of waiver request, which was submitted on April 25.
Pilgrim’s Pride, which owns 25 percent of the US poultry market, had net sales of nearly $7.6 billion last year, with a gross profit of about $600 million. According to 
Missouri and Kansas may be rivals on the football field but they are on the same team when it comes to the “food versus fuel” issue.
“Kids starving to death, doing an injustice to the environment - it’s going to be an all-out effort because they have to protect their bottomline,” Grassley says. “They have to have an excuse for increasing the price of their food. Forget all these altruistic things. It’s another Adolph Hitler lie, the bigger the lie, the more people are to believe it. And it’s easy to lie when people are ignorant about ethanol.”
“Hi, I’m Wink Davis and this is ‘Pass the Buck,’ the game show where everyone’s to blame but yourself. Let’s welcome back our champion for the last 80 years - the oil industry! How ya doin’ Big Oil?”