Are today’s farmers feeding and taking care of their animals properly?
It seems to come down to who you trust.
Marcia Gorrell, agriculture reporter for The Marshall Democrat-News in Marshall ,Missouri, is today’s guest blogger, and offers the following commentary on the confusing and contrary information bombarding consumers regarding our foods origin and safety.
Do you believe the family farmers who have spent their whole lives producing food? The farmers who have built modern farming techniques, step by step, generation by generation — building on the lessons, failures and successes of those who farmed before them?
Do you believe the scientists or researchers who have spent their entire careers studying animals, nutrition and food safety? Do you believe the USDA or the FDA who are tasked with making our food supply safe?
I have as much suspicion as anyone when it comes to the government, but in the case of food safety, I can’t argue with the results.
While the rest of the world’s agriculture has been ravaged by outbreaks of Mad Cow Disease and Bird Flu, we in the United States have not. Somebody is looking out for us and doing a good job. (more…)
The ethanol co-product known as DDGs or dried distillers grain is mostly being used right now as livestock feed, but someday it could be used to feed the hungry.
A Google search shows that this is not a new concept. One paper that turns up from Virginia Polytechnic Institute dates back to 1986 and discusses the use of DDG flour as an ingredient for preparing wheat muffins. According to that research, “DDG can be incorporated up to 10% in wheat muffins without significant changes in appearance, texture, flavor, and overall acceptability. Addition of either raisins or blueberries to wheat muffins allowed for an increase in the incorporation level of DDG to 15%. Wheat muffins supplemented with DDG had a higher protein, amino acids, and certain minerals content than wheat muffins without DDG.”
There’s even a patent that was issued in 1993 for an invention related “to a method for utilizing wet distiller’s grain (WDG) or distiller’s dried grain with solubles (DDGS), by-products of the alcohol manufacturing industry, in the preparation of bakery products for human consumption.”
Interesting concept that making ethanol from corn could actually help to feed people who are starving because we are making ethanol from corn. Kinda turns the whole food versus fuel argument on its head.
A coalition of groups sent letters to the Senate Environment and Public Works and Appropriations Committees last week advocating “scientific integrity in federal ethanol policy.” Seems they don’t like the five year delay in implementation of the land-use analysis for biofuels that was adopted in the House-passed climate bill. The groups include the same folks who have been attacking corn ethanol for the past several years, including the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, Environmental Working Group, Friends of the Earth, Grocery Manufacturers Association, Snack Food Manufacturers, etc.
According to a press release, “the letters to Senate committee leadership urged them to oppose legislation that would prohibit the inclusion of greenhouse gas emissions from market-induced deforestation in the lifecycle account for biofuels. Similar attempts were successful in the House’s recently passed climate bill. Biofuels that cause these types of greenhouse gas emissions are also the same biofuels that contribute to increased food prices around the world.”
The release also includes a couple of choice quotes from the various groups: “It makes little sense to increase the already lavish federal support for corn ethanol, a fuel that has failed in its promise to help the environment and make America energy independent.”
“As we learn more about the impacts of biofuels, it has become clear that today’s biofuels take us backwards in terms of global warming, while increasing global hunger.”
“Sound, verifiable science should always guide the crafting and implementation of environmental and energy policy.”
Problem here is that they are making claims that are NOT backed by science and urging Congress to rush into using unproven methodology to measure environmental effects.
The usual suspects are guilty once again of spreading misinformation and continuing attacks on ethanol for their own self interest.
Representatives of agribusiness in St. Louis pitched the importance of the Show Me state and the Bio Belt at the 2009 World Ag Congress Tuesday.
Novus International, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), the American Soybean Association (ASA), and the University of Missouri were among those touting Missouri’s unique agribusiness climate and characteristics. NCGA Director of Biotechnology and Economic Analysis Nathan Fields said they were proud to call St. Louis home, which gives them a grassroots perspective.
I talked with Nathan about the World Ag Congress and how the corn growers are working on the missions of sustainability and feeding the world. “We feel that U.S. corn production is a model system for the world,” he said. “We we have the greatest efficiency in production and we think that we have a lot of information that we can impart internationally to promote the technology that we use to increase productivity.”
Yesterday’s press conference with three members of the Obama cabinet about the administration’s commitment to biofuels offered some refreshingly encouraging words for our nation’s agricultural industry.
Probably the best words of praise came from Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who noted that agriculture is one of the nation’s greatest resources for energy. “We have incredible capacity not only to grow the food we need and to have dynamic exports, we can also grow a considerable amount of energy,” said Chu. (Take that, fuel versus foodies!)
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson also noted the important role agriculture has in supplying the nation’s energy needs. “In the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), Congress recognized the need for a homegrown fuel source,” said Jackson. “Every year, we send billions of dollars overseas, often to unfriendly places. With renewable fuels, we can send those billions to rural and farming communities, people who need help most in these challenging economic times.”
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is supposed to say nice things about agriculture, but we’ll give him some credit for saying them anyway. It was especially encouraging that he got top billing in yesterday’s press conference, which was really about the release of EPA’s proposed rulemaking for the Renewable Fuels Standard. It indicates that the Obama administration really does recognize the critical role agriculture plays in the biofuels industry, as Vilsack stated in his comments. “This reflects President Obama’s commitment to rural America. It merges and marries together rural economic development with agriculture to create clean jobs and clean opportunity. It is a firm commitment in making this industry an integral part of this new 21st century American economy,” said Vilsack. “It provides additional income opportunities for American farmers and ranchers, jobs for those who live in rural communities and energy security for every single American.”
The Congressional Budget Office report on ethanol and food prices released last week spun both ways for ethanol, depending on the media outlet and which side of the food versus fuel debate your corn is buttered.
For example, the San Francisco Chronicle headline proclaimed “Energy Blamed More than Ethanol For Food Prices.” Others with a similar spin included Midwestern papers like the Des Moines Register and the Grand Island Independent.
Headlines from the Associated Press and Reuters, however, led with a more negative spin. AP headlined “Report: Ethanol Raises Cost of Nutrition Programs.” Unfortunately the report only quantified the effect of higher corn prices on last year’s food price increases, even though it specifically notes that “certain other factors—for example, higher energy costs—had a greater effect on food prices than did the use of ethanol as a motor fuel.” It would be nice to know how much higher gasoline and electricity prices helped to raise the cost of nutrition programs, but CBO was only charged with finding out how much ethanol was to blame.
The report made some important points about the inability to predict ethanol’s future impact on food prices because the forces determining that impact move in opposite directions.” Federal mandates now in place require additional use of ethanol in the future, which would continue to put upward pressure on prices. In contrast, increases in the supply of corn from cultivating more cropland, increasing crop yields, or improving the technology for making ethanol from corn or other feedstocks (raw materials) would tend to lower food prices.
What was interesting about the report was that there was something in it for everyone, with both sides of the food versus fuel debate claiming that it supported them. I guess the government just wanted to be fair to everybody.
The latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate (WASDE) from USDA is projecting a higher carryout for corn this year due to smaller than expected usage for ethanol and exports.
Projected U.S. feed grain ending stocks for 2008/09 are raised this month with increases for corn, barley, and oats. Corn use is projected lower with increased feed and residual use more than offset by reductions in ethanol use and exports. Ethanol use is projected 300 million bushels lower this month as prospects for blending above federally mandated levels decline. Financial problems for ethanol producers are reducing plant capacity utilization for existing plants and delaying plant openings for those facilities still under construction. Falling gasoline prices have also resulted in high relative prices for ethanol, reducing blender incentives. Despite reductions in expected meat production, corn feed and residual use are raised 50 million bushels as lower ethanol production reduces the availability of distiller grains. Corn exports are projected 100 million bushels lower reflecting strong competition from larger foreign grain supplies and the slow pace of sales to date. Projected ending stocks are raised 350 million bushels. The season-average farm price is projected at $3.65 to $4.35 per bushel, down on both ends of the range from last month’s $4.00 to $4.80 per bushel.
There is no update for corn production from USDA this month, which remains at 12 billion bushels.
The world’s population will grow by 33 percent by the year 2040, but the amount of farmland to feed and fuel that growing demand won’t have to grow by that same one-third… that’s what attendees at the Farm Foundation’s Food and Agriculture Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. heard this week from Greg Webb of Archer Daniels Midland.
Webb from Archer Daniels Midland told the group increasing efficiencies in production agriculture would help meet the growing demands while adding only a disproportional smaller amount of land to the production mix.
“Agriculture’s role is not one of conflict between food or fuel,” Webb said. “It is one that is quite compatible. Producing more food results in more fuel being produced as well.”
Webb says more efficient practices will give farmers, who are already are being pretty efficient compared to just recent history, an even greater opportunity to produce both the food and fuel the world demands, as long policies don’t get in the way.
Listen to an interview with Greg Webb by reporter John Davis with DomesticFuel:
A group of ethanol producers has announced the launch of their new organization, Growth Energy, with the release of a policy brief and an ad campaign to set the record straight on food prices. The campaign comes at a time when corn prices have decreased by more than fifty percent and oil prices have been tumbling, while food prices continue to soar.
“Big Food and their Washington lobbyists have been trying to blame the rising cost of food on American ethanol producers and the cost of corn. Well, now that the price of corn has dropped more than fifty percent since the summer, we ask the Big Food industry to explain to the American people why food prices are still so high,” said Jeff Broin, CEO of POET. “The lies the Big Food lobby has been spreading about clean, green biofuels have finally been exposed as an intellectually dishonest smear campaign. It’s wrong and we’re coming together to ask Big Food to give struggling Americans a break.”
The cost of food has increased at the brisk clip of 7.6 percent in the past year, the worst rate in nearly twenty years, and has continued to increase while the cost of corn and other commodities have fallen in the past four months. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the price of basic foods in the United States is currently rising at twice the rate of inflation and is expected to continue to rise in the future. Milk prices increased by 13.3 percent; cheese by 12.5 percent; eggs by 29.9 percent; and bread by 14.7 percent from March 2007 through March 2008. Big Food is sowing profit growth from these higher prices. Kraft’s revenues increased nearly 20 percent from the year-earlier period and saw net income shoot up in the third quarter to $1.4 billion. Sales at Kellogg’s climbed 9.5 percent and third-quarter net income increased to $342 million, up from $305 million the year earlier.
More and more, the food “versus” fuel debate is being proved for the lie it was. There never was a strong connection between ethanol demand and retail food prices. Here are a few more obituaries, if you will, for this discussion.
“While food processors were willing and able to immediately blame ethanol and rising corn prices for having to increase retail food prices, they won’t be extending the same courtesy by lowering those prices with lower corn and oil prices.”
“… those who blamed biofuels for pushing up prices of major grains made a problematic mistake. The more cautious (and often less noisy) experts – like the Wageningen University’s agrocommodity specialists – were correct, when they said biofuels played a ‘marginal’ role at best.”
Is our food safe or not?
The usual suspects are at it again.
Representatives of agribusiness in St. Louis pitched the importance of the Show Me state and the Bio Belt at the 2009 
I talked with Nathan about the World Ag Congress and how the corn growers are working on the missions of sustainability and feeding the world. “We feel that U.S. corn production is a model system for the world,” he said. “We we have the greatest efficiency in production and we think that we have a lot of information that we can impart internationally to promote the technology that we use to increase productivity.”
Probably the best words of praise came from Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who noted that agriculture is one of the nation’s greatest resources for energy. “We have incredible capacity not only to grow the food we need and to have dynamic exports, we can also grow a considerable amount of energy,” said Chu. (Take that, fuel versus foodies!)
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson also noted the important role agriculture has in supplying the nation’s energy needs. “In the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), Congress recognized the need for a homegrown fuel source,” said Jackson. “Every year, we send billions of dollars overseas, often to unfriendly places. With renewable fuels, we can send those billions to rural and farming communities, people who need help most in these challenging economic times.” 
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is supposed to say nice things about agriculture, but we’ll give him some credit for saying them anyway. It was especially encouraging that he got top billing in yesterday’s press conference, which was really about the release of EPA’s proposed rulemaking for the Renewable Fuels Standard. It indicates that the Obama administration really does recognize the critical role agriculture plays in the biofuels industry, as Vilsack stated in his comments. “This reflects President Obama’s commitment to rural America. It merges and marries together rural economic development with agriculture to create clean jobs and clean opportunity. It is a firm commitment in making this industry an integral part of this new 21st century American economy,” said Vilsack. “It provides additional income opportunities for American farmers and ranchers, jobs for those who live in rural communities and energy security for every single American.”
For example, the 
Projected U.S. feed grain ending stocks for 2008/09 are raised this month with increases for corn, barley, and oats. Corn use is projected lower with increased feed and residual use more than offset by reductions in ethanol use and exports. Ethanol use is projected 300 million bushels lower this month as prospects for blending above federally mandated levels decline. Financial problems for ethanol producers are reducing plant capacity utilization for existing plants and delaying plant openings for those facilities still under construction. Falling gasoline prices have also resulted in high relative prices for ethanol, reducing blender incentives. Despite reductions in expected meat production, corn feed and residual use are raised 50 million bushels as lower ethanol production reduces the availability of distiller grains. Corn exports are projected 100 million bushels lower reflecting strong competition from larger foreign grain supplies and the slow pace of sales to date. Projected ending stocks are raised 350 million bushels. The season-average farm price is projected at $3.65 to $4.35 per bushel, down on both ends of the range from last month’s $4.00 to $4.80 per bushel.
Webb from Archer Daniels Midland told the group increasing efficiencies in production agriculture would help meet the growing demands while adding only a disproportional smaller amount of land to the production mix.
“Big Food and their Washington lobbyists have been trying to blame the rising cost of food on American ethanol producers and the cost of corn. Well, now that the price of corn has dropped more than fifty percent since the summer, we ask the Big Food industry to explain to the American people why food prices are still so high,” said Jeff Broin, CEO of POET. “The lies the Big Food lobby has been spreading about clean, green biofuels have finally been exposed as an intellectually dishonest smear campaign. It’s wrong and we’re coming together to ask Big Food to give struggling Americans a break.”