Looking around while pumping gas at a local filling station yields a bounty of scowls, grimaces and a plethora of pained facial expressions these days. With gas prices creeping steadily upwards, it is hard to imagine how much worse it could be, but, without ethanol, it would.
Last week during the General Session of Commodity Classic 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack spoke passionately about the service farmers provide in growing the fuel stock for ethanol which he cited as reducing gas prices by a full dollar per gallon.
A dollar? Just the word in and of itself sounds so small. Panhandlers, charities and elementary school-aged children alike know that asking for such a negligible amount frequently often receives the desired response whereas requesting a larger lump-sum generally does not. But, if add the phrase “per gallon” as a suffix, a dollar suddenly seems like an amount capable of impacting the national economy.
Research beyond the Secretary’s address confirmed that ethanol does play a sizable role in keeping gas prices down in the United States. While information substantiating the dollar claim did not appear within the first few options Google presented, confirmation of the impressive relationship from well-respected sources did.
Economists from Iowa State University and the University of Wisconsin found that the use of more than 13 billion gallons of ethanol reduced gasoline prices by an average of 89 cents per gallon in 2010. In real world terms, this amounts to $800 in savings last year for the average family of four as calculated by the Renewable Fuels Association in their explanation of ethanol’s impact.
Most Americans feel the pinch of a slow economy. It is time to stand up for ethanol, a sustainable, domestically-produced fuel that already provides real savings for real people. Click here to tell Washington that you support the Renewable Fuel Standard; keep ethanol in our tanks and hard-earned cash in our wallets.
Some things from grade school still hold true. You shouldn’t forget what you learned over the summer, you should try your hardest, and there should always be a playground monitor. This August, while Congress is at recess, they need you to act as a playground monitor by reminding them of what they learned about the importance of pending trade agreements to agriculture.
First, take a moment to review the lesson.
The United States is the largest producer and exporter of corn in the world. Developing new markets for our country’s agricultural products is vital to producer income and it also helps our sector lead the nation in economic growth and international competitiveness. USDA is forecasting the United States will reach a record high $135.5 billion in exports this year. Agriculture’s trade surplus is not something other sectors of our economy achieve. Passing FTAs will ensure our market share stays strong in existing and developing markets.
Now, it is time to try your hardest. Today, that entails actually meeting directly with your members of Congress. It is the most effective way to inform them how important the pending Free Trade Agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama are for rural America, consumers and the agriculture industry. Opponents of free trade agreements will be working hard this summer to kill support for the agreements. But your message, told in person, will make sure Congress knows the truth about the benefits of FTAs.
Scheduling a meeting with your member of Congress requires some homework. First, you will need to talk to their scheduler, typically located in Washington, DC. You can find your member’s contact information online at www.senate.gov, www.house.gov or by calling the Congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask them to connect you to their office.
Be aware that many schedulers have a policy requiring that all meeting requests be submitted by fax or email, so be prepared to send the following information: your name, hometown, and title; description of the issue(s) you wish to discuss; other meeting attendees (along with their names, hometowns, and titles). You can then expect the scheduler to follow up with you via phone or email.
Be prepared to offer the scheduler your available dates and times. The greater your flexibility, the greater the odds are that you will be able to meet with the member. If the member is not available to meet with you, there are still options. Schedule a meeting with their legislative aide responsible for agriculture or trade issues.
If you have difficulty scheduling time with your representative, you may also ask the scheduler if the member will be holding any public events, town hall meetings or similar listening sessions in the District that you might be able to attend.
Life, and government in particular, can seem complex and confusing at times. Just remember, the lessons that you learned early on are still applicable today. Use playground rules and make sure that Congress spends their recess doing something productive. It takes some work, but it can pay off for corn growers across the country.
According to many St. Louis meteorologists, the heat dome of 2011 will relent today, finally ushering in still-hot, but not life-threatening temperatures. In retrospect, the seemingly epic heat wave does offer some degree of humor. It just isn’t summer in the Midwest until some crack journalist attempts to fry an egg, cook macaroni and cheese, or even pop corn on a sidewalk.
While the epic creativity of the ever-rotating crop of insightful local reporters attempting such crazy feats allows us to giggle at the heat, or at least their tired antics, for many, the heat brought about a level of panic, suffering and problems more likely to make a sane person cry. From illness to electric bills that trigger a special sort of nausea, the heat wave wreaked havoc on what could otherwise have been a productive, enjoyable summer.
Children trapped indoors and sidelined runners aren’t the only groups stopped dead in their tracks by the blistering bubble. Corn farmers have watched as the crop they worked late into the night to plant following this spring’s unrelenting monsoon season begins to show signs of heat stress.
While the farmers themselves can escape to the icy, dark confines of the closest movie house, corn plants must find ways to endure the heat and preserve precious moisture. As corn plants are past the pollination stage at this point in the season, each individual plant makes a variety of small adaptations that best allow it to produce the maximum amount of viable seed possible.
As for each of us who has eschewed a morning jog or skipped an outdoor barbeque to cope with the insipid temperatures, corn plants make sacrifices to survive in these conditions. These sacrifices, although vital to preserving the corn and to the inherent objective of spreading its own genetic material, negatively impact the crop in a number of ways that can subsequently impinge on each individual farmer’s profitability at harvest.
Just walking through a corn field, the toll heat stress takes on a plant becomes obvious. The normally green, flat leaves that jet from the stalk have rolled in around the edges to reduce surface area, therefore preserving moisture. Near the ground, leaves have been fired from the stalk completely and now lie in brown, crumpled piles. The once lush, green field no longer resembles the perfect stands picturesquely surrounding the baseball diamond in “Field of Dreams.”
Heat damage affects more than the cosmetic in corn. As the nights stay hot and days reach record highs, the plant must further shut down to preserve the seeds encasing its valuable genetic material. The small kernels from the top of the ear abort to save the more desirable brethren at the base. Even the kernels for which much of the plant was sacrificed may not reach their maximum potential.
At harvest, these ears of corn will still be useful. The crop will still provide food, feed or fuel depending upon its destination. Yet, the farmer will again suffer as low test weights and diminished yields chip away at the profitability of the year’s corn crop. With high fertilizer prices and increasingly expensive land, farmers may find the heat burning them in the pocketbook long after a chilly fall breeze begins to blow in the evenings.
Farmers know from a very young age, most often by observing as their parents and grandparents worked that same land, that every year, every day their livelihood is at the mercy of the weather. Long after the average person’s electric bill is paid, farmers feel the impact of a long, hot summer.
So, next time a peppy freshman reporter cracks an egg onto a white hot sidewalk remember that the heat dome of 2011 will continue to loom large in the memories of many long after the holidays. America’s family farmers toil on despite the risk because they realize the importance of producing enough corn to supply the world’s growing demand.
For the vast majority of Americans, the idea of personally visiting their House or Senate representatives in Washington sounds somewhere between intimidating and uninteresting. Despite the fact that they, together with the other members of their state or district, directly determine if said legislator keeps his or her job, most citizens simply do not feel heard or as if their opinion is truly valued.
Last week, I had the opportunity to accompany a group of farmers as they met with two House members and one Senator from their home state. The experience left me hopeful that our government might actually work for us if only we made the effort to tell them what we think is best for the country.
While most often we met with staffers, who appeared to be quite young, two of the three representatives that we visited took the time to greet the delegation and briefly discuss a few key issues. One particularly interested House member even asked a grower speaking with him on farm policy to walk with him as he headed to the floor to cast a vote.
He did this because he was interested. The staffers were just as interested and, in most cases, already knew about our concerns over ethanol, trade agreements and transportation issues from National Corn Growers Association staff if DC. After the second visit, it began to set in that these people are in DC, devoting countless hours to their work, because they honestly believe that government can improve the lives of both Americans and the world as a whole. It also became obvious that an organization like NCGA merely sets the stage on an issue but it is the individual constituents that turn up the volume and make the message stick.
Maybe what sets them on fire, that same deep seated conviction, is what they saw in the farmers. These two men were not paid to be there. They had traveled a long way, during a busy season, because they too believe that government impacts their life and, with information and dialogue, they too could create change for their families, their farms and their fellow corn growers
As I tiredly descended the stairs that day, I felt like we had truly accomplished something. Unlike when politicians hold partisan battles with one another for the cameras, when ordinary Americans enter their legislators’ offices they can be open and receptive without the fear of being vulnerable. They can take the time to try and understand what impacts the lives of their constituents without worrying about the next sound bite. They can listen.
So, the impetus is on us. We must let them hear what we need as an agricultural community. The first step toward actively informing your legislators on farm issues may take time and effort, but it will be worth it. Someone will make the visit to the Hill to speak with legislators personally. Let’s make sure that they see the same passion from us and get a personal update on how legislation is effecting what is arguably our most important industry.
As high school English teachers hand out research paper assignments to eye rolls and sighs, they must know that their students feel nearly certain that the knowledge gained in carefully sourcing their final assignment will never serve them later in life. This attitude remains pervasive into adulthood it seems as many legislators, food elitists and a broad array of anti-ag activists have forgotten one of the keys to a successful assignment: Always base your thesis on information from academically credible sources.
Right now, arguments against corn-based ethanol, corn sugar and production agriculture have gained a significant amount of public attention. What we must do is question the information the nay-sayers build their arguments upon because, as high school also taught, popularity does not equal substance.
But it seems legislators forgot these valuable lessons as the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology’s Subcommittee on Energy and Environment decided to invite chicken lobbyists, environmentalists and Big Oil to testify during a hearing examining the science behind E15. While each of these groups most certainly has an opinion, albeit a self-serving one, on ethanol, none can claim to have conducted the unbiased, scientific research that would lend their arguments credibility.
If the subcommittee had truly intended to take a hard look at the scientific knowledge on E15, there were many groups who could have offered more pertinent, reliable data. Institutions that publish actual research that holds weight in scientific circles, including the Rochester Institute of Technology and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have conducted extensive research on the matter. Yet, somehow, our elected officials chose to listen to groups with obvious agendas and little expertise in the matter.
Food elitists have taken the same route as the armchair activists who perpetuate the idea that corn sugar, also known as high fructose corn syrup, somehow adds to the obesity epidemic, predisposes persons toward diabetes or is just generally bad. A majority of the HFCS-bashing public cannot accurately explain why they believe it to be worse beyond knowing that they heard something about some study.
Performing a routine Facebook search for the term yields telling results immediately. The very first result offered is a page advocating a complete ban of HFCS. Put together by a high school graduate with no discernible other credentials, the page explains that corn sugar differs from other sweeteners as the body metabolizes fructose and glucose differently. He even cites scientific evidence.
It is time that we ask as much of ourselves as was required in high school – that we act as critical thinkers. The assignments today include developing sensible policies that serve the public good and are based in science and not propaganda-driven hysteria. Much more is at stake than an A this time so follow your English teacher’s instructions and make sure that the information you share comes from a source deserving of your trust.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that passage of all three FTAs would result in 22,500 new jobs in that sector alone. While this would not return unemployment levels to their pre-crisis lows, it would drastically, immediately change the lives of both the 22,500 hired as well as the approximately 67,500 people who depend upon them. By opening these markets, Congress would directly improve the financial, physical and emotional well-being of 90,000 Americans.
Albeit in a less dramatic manner, the passage of these trade agreements benefits the entire nation. The American Farm Bureau estimates passage of these agreements would generate an additional 2.5 billion dollars in the U.S. economy through agricultural trade alone. If Congress is willing to fight tooth and nail over cutting a few billion dollars from current spending, actually growing the national economy should be a high priority.
According to the Oil and Gas Journal, all U.S. oil companies combined control less than 10% of the world’s oil reserves, and the world’s ten largest oil and natural gas companies are 100% owned by foreign governments.
Ponder that statistic for minute and then tell me our quest for more and better alternative sources of domestic energy is a bad idea. In the latest “Standing Out in the Field” blog they make a well reasoned response to critics who either have contrary agendas or simply have not done enough research.
The public debate over ethanol, and specifically the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Exemption (VEETC), has been prominent in recent weeks so it seems a good time to look at why Congress passed this legislation originally and why it continues to be a sound decision.
An analysis by AUS Consultants shows the elimination of VEETC would result in consumers paying $3 billion more in higher gasoline costs, including $500 million in federal gas taxes, household income falling by $2.9 billion, and 120,600 more Americans having to file for unemployment. Another study shows the American ethanol industry has generated an estimated $33.4 billion in federal tax revenues and nearly $17 billion in state and local tax revenues since 1978 – a 5 to 1 return on investment of the VEETC.
Economist Donis Petersan notes a 100 million gallon-per-year ethanol plant results in:
$70 million to the local economy during construction
Expansion of the local economic base by $233 million each year
45 direct jobs, plus 101 indirect jobs throughout the area
Household income raised by $7.9 million annually.
So until legislators are willing to apply the same yardstick to all fuel sources regarding incentives, including oil, the debate in Washington, DC should be decided in ethanol’s favor.
Corn growers are in Washington, DC taking care of business. It’s the semi-annual Corn Congress.
Corn farmers from across the country will gather in Washington the week of July 12 for a series of team and committee meetings, Capitol Hill visits with lawmakers and the semi-annual Corn Congress, where grower-leaders from 28 states will elect four new members of the National Corn Growers Association Corn Board. You can hear NCGA President Darrin Ihnen talk about it:
One of the activities that took place today was the presentation of the President’s Award.
National Corn Growers Association President Darrin Ihnen today presented the President’s Award to Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) during NCGA’s Corn Congress events in Washington, D.C. The President’s Award is given annually to a leader who has worked to advance issues important to corn growers and agriculture.
Is it too much to ask for some integrityand just plain honesty in the world? Growing up I probably came across as totally naïve to many of those around me because I believed authority figures like government officials and scientists and most any adult in my life. And you could have convinced me my parents carried the second tablet down the mountain for Moses. The reason was simple…I had no reason not to.
Today, I share trust and dole out faith in the smallest of measures because we seem to be surrounded by fibs, manufactured “facts,” bogus science, and politicians and businessmen that would have been whacked back to the stone age with a ruler by Sister Mary Margaret in third grade.
A quick look at the news this week easily surfaced examples of this kind of fast and loose use of incorrect information, handy subterfuge, and dare I say it…lies.
The first is news from the London Telegraph which notes the venerable United Nations has admitted a report linking livestock to global warming exaggerated the impact of eating meat on climate change or global warming.
The 2006 study, Livestock’s Long Shadow, claimed meat production was responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions – more than transportation.
Now Sir Paul doesn’t strike me as the scientist type so perhaps that should have been a clue. If Dr. Ringo had made the claim that would have been different. The point is for three years many people have been assured eating meat would leading to global Armageddon brought on by nothing less than cow flatulence. Oh, the indignity.
All the time the truth is that “meat and milk production generates less greenhouse gas than most environmentalists claim and that the emissions figures were calculated differently to the transport figures, resulting in an “apples-and-oranges analogy that truly confused the issue.”
If your jaded self is still with me it’s on to example 2. While we have been blissfully driving about in our trucks and SUVs it seems the oil magnates of the world have been manipulating oil supply numbers for financial gain and to curry political favor. (Insert sound effects of heavy and shocked intake of breath here). (more…)
Kicking off the NCGA Land Use and Carbon Impacts of Corn-Based Ethanol Conference and welcoming participants was Conference Chairman, Jamey Cline, NCGA Director Biofuels and Business Development. I spoke with him after the opening session.
Jamey says that regulations from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and from EPA on the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) have brought up a number of questions and this conference was put together to ask them and receive answers in a public forum with various stakeholders. A lot of these current or proposed regulations are based on assumptions and economic theory and so questions need to be asked to make sure the latest data is being used and reasonable predictions are made for the future. He says that these issues are extremely important to agribusiness and corn growers in particular because if the CARB regs hold up, by 2012 they will effectively shut off that market to ethanol. Additionally, one presenter said that due to the proposed climate change bill and RFS, approximately 27.1 million acres would be taken out of production across the Unites States. That would have a huge impact on our economy, especially in rural areas.
He also speaks about the various models being used or referenced on the topics like land use change and life cycle analysis.
Looking around while pumping gas at a local filling station yields a bounty of scowls, grimaces and a plethora of pained facial expressions these days. With gas prices creeping steadily upwards, it is hard to imagine how much worse it could be, but, without ethanol, it would.
Kicking off the NCGA Land Use and Carbon Impacts of Corn-Based Ethanol Conference and welcoming participants was Conference Chairman, Jamey Cline, NCGA Director Biofuels and Business Development. I spoke with him after the opening session.