This is the kind of response that every ethanol supporter out there should be writing.
It appears in “The Kansan.com” and was written by Dana Shifflett of Newton, who is apparently a wheat grower. I did not see the original editorial, but this writer makes excellent, well constructed points. Here are just a few – you need to read the whole thing and memorize it to fight back with some good facts.
Ethanol and the cost of food: Ethanol has increased the value of the crops we grow, but the cost of our crops is a very small portion — 4 percent to 6 percent, I believe, of the price you pay for food.
The majority of your money goes to the manufacturers and marketers. Rising energy costs mean higher transportation and manufacturing costs, and I believe that accounts for most of our recent food and consumer goods price hikes.
For perspective: In the summer of ‘99, I paid 68.9 cents for a gallon of gas at the Sam’s Club in west Wichita, and my wheat sold for $2.25 a bushel. Today, gas is roughly $2.80 — or four times as much — and the diesel that fuels our trucks, locomotives and barges is up a similar percentage. Wheat, at $6.55, is 2.9 times as much.
I don’t grow corn, but I think it’s up even less.
Fuel mileage: The writer claims E10 will cut your mileage by 7 percent to 8 percent. That is not my experience.
I keep logbooks for my vehicles, and I figure gas mileage and, since 1981, I’ve consistently found a 3 percent mileage improvement with E10 even though it has only 96.7 percent as much energy as straight gasoline.
I think I know why, but rather than make a long story longer, I’ll let those of you with a background in physics or mechanics consider the effect of ethanol’s higher latent heat of evaporation on an engine’s intake charge and compression stroke.
Read it all.
While you’re at it, check out this article from the New York Times and make sure to read all the comments. The article is very negative towards ethanol, but the comments are running about 50-50, although there is a massive amount of misinformation on both sides. This is the kind of article that ethanol supporters need to comment on.
LifeLine Foods is opening a new generation ethanol plant in St. Joseph, Missouri that could eventually put to rest the whole “food versus fuel” issue.
The facility features a mill in the front of the plant that separates the corn kernel into fiber, protein and starches. This technique enables increased utilization of the starch within the kernel. The resulting higher quality starches will be used for food products while the lower quality starches will be used to produce ethanol.
In addition, the plant utilizes the fiber in the corn kernel to produce energy. This process reduces the plant’s dependence on natural gas and allows the plant to generate its own fuel.
Ken McCauley of White Cloud, Kansas is one of the plant’s 600 farmer-owners. He is also president of the National Corn Growers Association and he says this plant is a new innovation in the ethanol industry. “When you talk about food and fuel, this is the epitome of it,” said McCauley. “It’s the perfect answer to somebody who says you’re just taking food and making fuel. No, we’re not. We’re making the most out of every kernel of corn.”
McCauley explains how it works. “This is the perfect fractionation process because you’re breaking it down at the front end. So, you’re actually getting the germ out, which is the corn oil. You’re also taking the endosperm out and you’re getting what we call snack grits, that make the snack products. What’s left is starch, already broken down and ready to make ethanol.” Finally you have a high protein product leftover.
The slogan for LifeLine’s plant is “Fueling America, Feeding the World” and McCauley says it’s important for agriculture to step up and start defending itself against the critics of ethanol. “There’s nobody going hungry in the world because of ethanol,” he says.
Bill Becker, CEO of LifeLine, says using the fiber to create energy for the plant is also a major part of the equation. “One of the misnomers about the ethanol industry is that it takes more energy to produce it,” he says. “That might have been true 35 years ago but there’s been great strides in efficiency. And I believe we will continue to see improved efficiencies to the point that the fiber will supply 100 percent of our energy needs (in the plant). And I think that’s within 2-3 years.”
LifeLine produces ingredients for dry cereal, snacks and tortillas. Some of the flour they produce has been distributed around the world in the Food for Peace program through USDA.
Consumers have a growing amount of online information that provides them with good science based information to make better choices, especially when it comes to new energy choices. We’re going to point to them whenever and wherever we find them.
Take for example a YouTube video from Monsanto that helps provide some positive perspective for food and fuel. It’s titled, “Renewable Fuels: From Farm To Fuel Pump.” This 6 minute video reviews how “Ethanol and Biodiesel can offer benefits to consumers and farmers.” The video features comments from NCGA’s CEO Rick Tolman who talks about increasing yields and the productivity of America’s corn growers.
Here’s how IL Corn starts it out:
The price of a bushel of corn and its effect on the price of just about everything else has created more nonsense on both sides of the argument than anything since Walt Disney was a pup. Is it a food vs. fuel proposition? Does converting corn to ethanol so we can feed the gas tanks of America steal food from starving Africans? Maybe shipping cheap corn to Chad actually prevents that nation from developing an Ag base that can grow its own food. (So begins a story and interview on “The Cattle Network” website today.
In it, the authors make the startling claim that the increase in world agriculture prices caused by the global boom in biofuels could benefit many of the world’s rural poor.
“Decades of declining agricultural prices have been reversed thanks to the growing use of biofuels,” says Christopher Flavin, president of the Institute. “Farmers in some of the poorest nations have been decimated by U.S. and European subsidies to crops such as corn, cotton, and sugar. Today’s higher prices may allow them to sell their crops at a decent price, but major agriculture reforms and infrastructure development will be needed to ensure that the increased benefits go to the world’s 800 million undernourished people, most of whom live in rural areas.”
The book also concludes:
Growth in biofuels production may have unexpected economic benefits, according to the experts who contributed to the report. Of the 47 poorest countries, 38 are net importers of oil and 25 import all of their oil; for these nations, the tripling in oil prices has been an economic disaster. But nations that develop domestic biofuels industries will be able to purchase fuel from their own farmers rather than spending scarce foreign exchange on imported oil.
The book does say that current biofuels production methods do place a burden on land and water resources but says “the long-term potential of biofuels is in the use of non-food feedstock, including agricultural and forestry wastes, as well as fast-growing, cellulose-rich energy crops such as perennial grasses and trees.”
“Biofuels alone will not solve the world’s transportation-related energy problems,” the authors conclude. “Development of these fuels must occur within the context of a transition to a more efficient, less polluting and more diversified global transport sector. They must be part of a portfolio of options that includes dramatc improvements in vehicle fuel economy, investment in public transportation, and better urban planning.”
After hearing national media coverage citing ethanol as the reason for higher grocery costs, Colorado Corn Growers, Colorado Farm Bureau and Ag Commissioner John Stulp decided to take a stand. Several Denver media outlets featured the story. You can see their coverage using the following links!
“Farmers Defend Themselves Amid Growing Prices” – This is a KCNC News 4 story by Mike Hooker. In the story he writes, “Colorado agricultural leaders say the special interest groups, who want to put the ethanol business out to pasture, are misleading the public.
“They want the American public to think that they’re going to have to decide between food or fuel,” Troy Brendenkamp with the Colorado Agricultural Council said.
Fighting back, Colorado ag leaders called a news conference Thursday. They praised U.S. farmers and said corn growers aren’t getting a windfall from ethanol when production cost increases like labor and, particularly, the spike in fuel costs are considered.” “Colorado corn growers address grocery prices” – This is a 9News.com story by TaRhonda Thomas. In the story she writes, “”The national media would have you believe the increased demand for corn… is responsible for increases in everything from apples to zucchini,” said Mark Sponsler, executive director of the Colorado Corn Growers Association. “The real impact of the corn for fuel industry is much less significant than some would have you believe.”
“They ignore the impact of petroleum and higher energy costs on production, manufacturing, transportation, packaging, utilities and the fact that wages account for more than sixty percent of every dollar spent at the grocery store,” said Sponsler.”
The latest food industries to blame ethanol for rising prices are German beer brewers and gummy bear makers, according to this article from Spiegel International.
To answer that, CARD says knowing how U.S. consumers spend their food dollars and how higher commodity prices influence food prices will give us a better understanding of whether we’ll be spending more or less on food in the future.
One indicator of a nation’s standard of living is the proportion of income that its citizens spend on food. Typically, this share is measured using after-tax or disposable income. This share in the United States has fallen from 20 percent in the early 1950s to about 10 percent today. In contrast, Canadians today spend an average of about 14 percent of their disposable income on food, and Mexicans spend 26 percent. It would be even less than 10 percent if we didn’t spend about HALF of our food dollar dining out, and the main reason food prices have risen more slowly than other prices over the years is “rapid productivity growth on the farm and all along the food chain.”
Okay, so what happens when the price of corn goes up? According to CARD, as an example, “if a $1.00 can of soda contains 2¢ worth of corn that is contained in high-fructose corn sweetener, then a doubling in the price of corn would increase the cost of producing the soda by at most 2¢.” But, corn makes up a smaller share of the final price for all foods consumed AWAY from home than food consumed at home because of additional labor costs.
In a recent study, CARD researchers estimated that a 30 percent increase in the price of corn, and associated increases in the prices of wheat and soybeans, would increase egg prices by 8.1 percent, poultry prices by 5.1 percent, pork prices by 4.5 percent, beef prices by 4.1 percent, and milk prices by 2.7 percent. For all food consumed at home, average prices would increase by 1.3 percent. For food consumed away from home, average prices were estimated to increase by 0.9 percent. So, across all food consumed, 30 percent higher corn prices increase all average food prices by 1.1 percent, according to our estimates.
Ethanol may be a convenient scapegoat for food companies and others to blame for higher prices, but there are too many other factors that may be having a much larger impact. CARD uses milk as an example, saying that “the primary cause of high milk prices is that international demand for dairy products has outstripped international supply.”
Not sure if that is the case with beer and gummy bears, but ethanol does give those folks a good reason to increase their prices and lay the blame elsewhere while they make more money.
I know Chuck already did a post on the Iowa “Popcorn Propaganda” event, but here are my thoughts to add, along with another picture.
This is Iowa Corn Promotion Board intern Paul Brees with the fruits of his six hours of labor – 38.5 pounds of popcorn. The purpose of Paul’s popping project was to point out to the press and the public that pinning popcorn prices on ethanol production is pure poppycock.
The Iowa photo-op did generate some publicity. The Associated Press story headline reads, “Ethanol Makers Join Food vs. Fuel Debate.” The story was good, the facts were right, the ending comments from the Jolly Time popcorn people fell pretty flat, but the headline was all wrong. It makes it sound like all of the sudden the corn and ethanol industries woke up and decided to defend themselves. The media just hasn’t been listening.
Here is a link to the popcorn facts sheet from the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association that provides some points for the media to ponder. Among them … that tub of popcorn at the movie theater contains .15 pounds, or 2.4 ounces, of popcorn kernels prior to popping. And that five dollars worth of popcorn from the farmer filling all those trash bags would translate to about $1280 at the movie theater.
By the way, in case you were wondering what happened to all that popcorn, Mindy Williamson with Iowa Corn says they donated it to local daycares and two homeless shelters. Not bad for a $5 investment!
It was inevitable that when Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns spoke at the National Press Club on July 27 someone would ask about ethanol. The transcript says it all:
QUESTION: Corn-based ethanol may help the nation reduce its dependence on foreign oil, but critics say that ethanol costs almost as much as the energy it produces. Isn’t corn-based ethanol a wasteful way to produce energy, and won’t it increase the cost of food?
SEC. JOHANNS: No, and it isn’t.
[Laughter.]
We studied that a lot at the USDA, and years ago when the plants were not as efficient, when ethanol was barely used in our country, there were a lot of articles about the inefficiency of producing ethanol and all the energy, etcetera. We’ve debunked that in our studies. We’ve put that issue to rest. Independent studies have looked at the same issue. You very definitely have efficiency here.
The other thing I will tell you, in the United States we’re going to grow corn. We just simply are. We do it very well; we do it better than any country in the world, and our farmers are going to grow corn. And I think it’s important that we do everything we can to create a marketplace.
Let me offer a thought, and we’re talking about maybe an address that really gets down to this issue of food versus fuel. Every year we have some inflation relative to food, 2 percent, 3 percent, somewhere in that vicinity, some years maybe a little bit more, a little bit less. This year with all of this debate raging we anticipate that food prices across the board will be impacted 2 to 4 percent, about average, maybe a little bit higher. Then when you look at that, many articles I read see that and then they go right to the conclusion, it’s because of ethanol, it’s because the price of corn got high and that’s the reason.
They leave out a whole big piece of the analysis. What’s the big piece of the analysis? The farmer doesn’t get all of that. I’m sure they wish they did. But they get about 20 cents of the retail dollar. Actually the increase in the price of energy to ship that food can have as much or more of a profound impact on the price of that food than the corn you feed to the animal.
I’m just telling you, this is a very, very complicated supply chain. And if you have reached the conclusion that because food is up 3 percent this year or 4 or 2 or whatever it is, that that’s because of ethanol, and you’ve missed all of that, you’re not telling the full story. And you’re not telling an accurate story, in all due respect.
We have the accurate story at the USDA. We study this all the time. We buy or provide money for nutrition programs, so of course we want to know what the price of food is doing. And anybody who wants to write an in-depth article on that or do a series on it, we’d love to provide you with the information on just how complex the food chain is and how impacts in that food chain relative to fuel to transport it, or to promotion costs or whatever it is, can actually have a more important impact on the cost of that food than the price of bushel of corn.
Ken McCauley of White Cloud, Kansas is one of the plant’s 600 farmer-owners. He is also president of the 
The latest food industries to blame ethanol for rising prices are German beer brewers and gummy bear makers, according to 
Okay, so what happens when the price of corn goes up? According to CARD, as an example, “if a $1.00 can of soda contains 2¢ worth of corn that is contained in high-fructose corn sweetener, then a doubling in the price of corn would increase the cost of producing the soda by at most 2¢.” But, corn makes up a smaller share of the final price for all foods consumed AWAY from home than food consumed at home because of additional labor costs.
I know Chuck already did a post on the Iowa “Popcorn Propaganda” event, but here are my thoughts to add, along with another picture.
We studied that a lot at the USDA, and years ago when the plants were not as efficient, when ethanol was barely used in our country, there were a lot of articles about the inefficiency of producing ethanol and all the energy, etcetera. We’ve debunked that in our studies. We’ve put that issue to rest. Independent studies have looked at the same issue. You very definitely have efficiency here.