The former commissioner of agriculture for the European Union says the food versus fuel controversy is unfair.
“They don’t differentiate between food price and agriculture price and the agriculture price is usually only a small component of the final food product,” Franz Fischler told me during an interview in Austria Friday.
Fischler says that second generation biofuels will be key in meeting long term renewable fuels goals for all countries, but it has to start with first generation ethanol from corn. “That’s why we have to start now,” he added.
Austria has ten biodiesel plants but so far only one ethanol plant. “It seems to me that biodiesel is the most difficult concept as far as sustainability is concerned,” Fischler said, mainly because soybeans and other oilseeds are less economical to grow in that region, compared to corn.
Listen to Fischler’s comments on ethanol here:
On the first day of the IFAJ Congress in Austria, Chuck Zimmerman asked Mr. Fischler what he thought about the Doha Round and if there will ever be any progress made. You might remember that Fischler was very involved in the GATT negotiations once upon a time. Fischler said it is regrettable that a conclusion has not been reached yet. “The negotiations were so advanced that a solution was very close,” Fischler said. “But now I think we must be patient because I don’t see a continuation of the trade talks until a new administration in the US is in charge. Only then I think can we re-launch the round.”
Republican presidential candidate John McCain visited the heart of the corn belt Friday, ate a pork chop on a stick and talked about increasing trade opportunities for agriculture.
During a speech at the Iowa State Fair, McCain promised to open markets for agricultural products. “There’s $150 to be made for every hog that’s raised and pig that’s raised in this state. $30 of those $150 is exports that are sent to markets around the world. If we approve of a free trade agreement between the United States of America and South Korea, that will be 10 more dollars,” McCain said. “The agricultural products here in the state of Iowa can feed the world. And we’re not afraid to compete with anybody in the world, my friends.”
McCain also talked about the need for energy independence and promoted his Lexington Project plan for energy security, which includes wind, tide, solar, nuclear, and renewable fuels.
However, he was very clear about his position when it came to ethanol. “And I want to tell you, we will disagree from time to time. I believe in renewable fuels. I don’t believe in ethanol subsidies, but I believe in renewable fuels. I believe we have to do all of those things to restore our economy.”
Gotta give him credit for his courage and honesty on the issue in the middle of the country’s biggest ethanol producing state, standing next to the state commissioner of agriculture and Farm Bureau president. Nobody threw a corn dog at him.
Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer will present a three pronged strategy to deal with rising food prices, climate change and energy security when he travels to Rome next week for the conference on World Food Security being held by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
Schafer says the strategy is basically to “provide food and other support to people who are hungry now, direct development assistance to those countries best able to rapidly increase the production of key food staples that can help feed the hungry, and encourage action to address multilateral and country-specific policies that prevent access to food and the technologies that produce food.”
To try and encourage greater use of biotechnology, Schafer and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance Henrietta Fore will host a side event focused on new technologies to showcase developing countries that have moved forward with public investment in adoption of bioengineered products. “Bioengineered crops are one of many situations that need to take place for increasing yields around the country if we’re going to meet the demands of increased consumption,” Schafer says.
Biofuels will most definitely be on the plate at the World Food conference and Schafer is prepared to defend US ethanol production policy. “I would point out that in the United States and in other countries as well, all ethanol production specifically has come from increased yields in the corn crops,” Schafer said. “Our export markets are up in corn out of the United States. The yield increases are taking care of it, and certainly the benefits derived are much more than the 2 to 3 percent that is contributing to the rising inflation in food costs internationally. We think it’s an important initiative, and while people do have some concern I think we can point out the facts here, not the emotions but the facts, that this is not distorting the global price of food. And it’s an important direction we need to go.”
The president doesn’t get to visit all the different departments of the federal government as often as he would like, so it was a pleasure for him to drop in at the US Department of Agriculture this week for the swearing in ceremony of Ed Schafer as new ag secretary.
“The roots of this Department stretch back to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln,” Bush told the assembled USDA employees, cabinet members and congressional representatives. “In 1862, President Lincoln established the first federal agency devoted to agriculture — and he called it “the people’s department.” Nearly a century-and-a-half later, the USDA can still be called “the people’s department.” With your nutrition programs and support for farmers and ranchers, you help ensure that our people are healthy and well fed. With your food safety measures, you give peace of mind to families across America. And with your conservation efforts, you help preserve our natural resources.”
Bush outlined his priorities for agriculture in his last year as president with Ed Schafer as secretary, saying “We will work to make our strong agriculture sector even stronger.”
That includes improving trade and increasing use of energy from agriculture.
“We recognize that farmers also have the potential to help our nation solve one of its greatest challenges — and that is our dependence on foreign oil. I’d much rather our farmers be growing energy than trying to buy from other parts of the world. So we will continue to work for renewable fuels — including a new generation of ethanol and biodiesel.”
Bush also talked about the importance of getting a good farm bill passed “a bill that spends the people’s money wisely, doesn’t raise taxes, reforms and tightens subsidy payments” and threatened to veto any bill that does not meet those qualifications.
Read remarks from Bush and Schafer here.
While the French were busy banning the production of biotech corn last week, their neighbors to the south were importing more US corn than they have in almost a decade.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign and Agricultural Service reports that the United States sold 2.5 million bushels of corn for shipment to Spain the week ending January 11 – the first of this magnitude to Spain since 1998-99, according to U.S. Grains Council officials who say biotechnology has been the primary trade barrier causing Spain not to seek U.S. corn.
“Because the tight supply of feed grains has feed millers and producers in a severe price squeeze, the timing is right to try and educate the European Union’s grain industry about biotechnology and elicit their support in addressing policy,” said Dale Artho, U.S. Grains Council chairman. “They were especially receptive to the idea of relaxing the EU GMO (genetically modified organisms) policies for U.S. corn. We discussed how corn with plant technology attributes could be utilized in their milling process for feed export markets and how that would reduce the pressure on their domestic markets.”
Artho said Spain’s purchase of U.S. corn is a good sign that the Council’s education efforts are working and gives U.S. producers reason to be optimistic about the potential to export genetically enhanced feed grains to Europe.
When European activist wackos act like spoiled children, they get their way.
That’s basically what happened when French President Nicolas Sarkozy made a “political” decision this week to ban the only genetically modified crop grown in France, Monsanto 810 – better known here as YieldGard Corn Borer. The variety produces a naturally occurring toxin, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), that kills corn borers.
“It does not mean that France does not participate in GMO research,” Sarkozy said. “It simply means that with the principle of precaution at stake, I am making a major political decision to carry our country to the forefront of the debate on the environment.”
Credit for the decision can be given, at least in part, to a high-profile activist who went on a hunger strike January 3 to demand a year-long ban on GMO crops. Anti-globalization activist and farmer Jose Bove has been on a rampage against GMOs, and even “been convicted of ripping up GM crops in southern France.” Sounds like a spoiled kid to me.
The decision was welcomed by Greenpeace activists, more spoiled children who in March dumped a ton of GMO corn at the door of Sarkozy’s campaign headquarters in Paris. (Question: Where did they get it? Did they grow it themselves, buy it – or rip it up out of someone’s field?)
During the campaign last year, Sarkozy’s opponents both said they would back a moratorium on GMO corn, while Sarkozy said he was “skeptical about the real benefits of GMOs” but that open-field crop trials should continue for research purposes, to keep open the option of using GM crops “once all safety conditions have been met.”
This week, after a controversial report that indicated a few scientists thought MON810 might have a negative impact on wildlife, Sarkozy enacted the ban by invoking “a safeguard clause” which allows a member state of the EU to refuse the sale of a product permitted across the 27-nation bloc.
Green Party French farmers like Bove (pictured on the right in the media spotlight) are pleased and eating again, but the head of the country’s largest farmers union called the announcement “surprising and shocking. The decision was very political to please a number of people including some on a hunger strike.”
Last year, Monsanto’s 810 corn made up less than one percent of all the corn grown in France. The president of AGPM, a French association of corn growers, said that France can survive without GMOs, “but it means we will protect our crops solely by chemical means and take the risk of depending on more imports in the future.”
Meanwhile, Monsanto will consider all of its options, including legal remedies. Monsanto spokesman Jonathan Ramsay said, “Monsanto will defend our customers’ right to choose.” So, it’s not over yet, but it still sends a message to wackos that hunger strikes, tearing up crops and dumping corn on the street gets them their way.
Fourteen years after the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed it has been fully implemented. As of Jan. 1, the final trade restrictions on U.S. exports of corn, dry edible beans, dry milk and high fructose corn syrup were removed under the agreement. This has sparked protests by farmers in Mexico.
Now, is it just me, or does this not make any sense? Just a few months ago, there were protests in Mexico over the price of tortillas increasing because of higher corn prices, right? Now, protesters say the “free entry of relatively cheap U.S. corn would devastate rural Mexico,” according to an LA Times story.
The article goes on to says that about 100 Mexican farmers partially blocked the border crossing between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, carrying signs that read “Without Corn There Is No Country.”
Here’s the kicker. “Mexico’s tortilla producer association said the final implementation of the treaty would reduce the number of Mexican corn producers and could lead to a 20% to 30% increase in the price of tortillas. It gave no details.”
Huh? Corn from the US is suddenly “relatively cheap” and now that it can be exported to Mexico without restrictions it will result in HIGHER tortilla prices. It gets even more confusing.
Mexican imports of U.S. corn have risen from less than 1 million metric tons in 1993 to 9.9 million metric tons in the 2006-07 marketing year that ended in July, according to statistics from the U.S. Agriculture Department.
The majority of the imports are of yellow corn, which is used to feed livestock and to make corn syrup. There are about 1.5 million corn farmers in Mexico and most grow white corn, which is used to make tortillas.
NAFTA critics say Mexican farmers cannot compete with their American counterparts because the government subsidies they receive are paltry compared with those given to U.S. farmers.
So, US corn exports to Mexico are increasing, but it’s not the type of corn used to make tortillas, which Mexican farmers tend to grow. But, they can’t compete with US corn farmers. I don’t get it.
Congress voted to override the presidential veto of the Water Resources Development Act, or WRDA, because it authorizes funding for water projects from coast to coast, but the centerpiece of repairing locks and dams on the Mississippi River was the main concern for corn growers.
“When it comes to this issue, nothing has been easy,” said NCGA President Ron Litterer. “After almost two decades of work by corn growers, millions of dollars spent on studies, seven years of waiting on the legislative process, a presidential veto and then a veto override by the U.S. Congress, we finally have achieved authorization to modernize seven locks on the Upper Mississippi River System. Once again, our grower members demonstrated their influence and commitment to the Water Resources Development Act by contacting their members of Congress and urging them to overturn the president’s veto.”
Litterer celebrated the victory this week with NCGA First Vice President Bob Dickey and Senator Kit Bond of Missouri who is credited with his perseverance in getting the legislation finally passed.
Missouri Corn Growers Association CEO Gary Marshall says, “No one deserves more credit for this bill becoming law than Senator Kit Bond. We owe him our sincere thanks for his vision and determination to see the locks and dams on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers upgraded.”
“These upgrades will spur economic growth for mid-America and will certainly go a long way towards improving access to world markets,” said Missouri Corn Growers President Mike Geske. “Our competitiveness in global trade has become much greater today due to the WRDA bill finally becoming law. We will now work with our Congressional delegation to see that funding is also approved.”
“Iowa’s corn growers should really celebrate this achievement,” said Warren Kemper, a grower from Louisa County and long-time advocate for improving the river’s infrastructure. “The ICGA has been lobbying for lock and dam improvements for more than a decade. WRDA is important to farmers who depend on the inland waterways, but it is also important to the whole economy of the upper Midwest.”
“It’s taken nearly two decades of work by corn growers and a consortium of other trade groups nationwide, as well as millions of dollars in studies, to finally authorize work to repair and modernize seven locks on the Upper Mississippi River System,” said Wisconsin Corn Growers Association President Tom Novak. “While we’re glad legislation finally passed, we still have a great deal of work to do to ensure the work it authorizes is properly funded.”
Even though President Bush vetoed WRDA citing the cost as the reason, the bill actually only authorizes the projects and opens the way to appropriate the funds needed to replace the locks. Once the money is appropriated it will still take more than 15 years to replace the 70-year-old locks that are falling apart.
The majority of U.S. agricultural organizations are strongly in favor of free trade, whether it be global or bilateral. The “level playing field” phrase is most often used as the reason for that support. Exports are a significant part of the agricultural economy of our nation, and therefore of the economy as a whole. According to USDA, agricultural exports hit a record $79 billion this year. Next year that number is projected to be $83 billion.
“First, U.S. agricultural exports currently face barriers to entering these markets. Although we allow more than 99 percent of the agricultural exports from Colombia, Panama and Peru to enter our market in the U.S. duty free, we have virtually no duty free access in their markets…
Secondly, not signing these agreements does not mean that we can maintain the status quo going forward. As other nations put free trade agreements in place, we stand simply to lose market share….
The third and final reason… is simple. It’s a simple message because free trade is simply a good thing. It does level the playing field, creates jobs, it allows for fair competition for U.S. producers, and it does capitalize on the strengths of the parties that are involved.”
American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman noted that all of agriculture will see benefits from free trade with just the Peru, Colombia and Panama Trade Promotion Agreements. “These three agreements would increase U.S. agricultural trade by almost $1.5 billion once fully implemented,” said Stallman, “These gains would be spread across all sectors of U.S. agriculture, from livestock to fiber and from grains and oilseeds to fruits and vegetables.”
Former AFBF president Dean Kleckner says the benefit is doubled with Korea. “If Congress were to approve the four free-trade agreements currently on the table, these deals would generate more than $3 billion in additional sales for American farmers each year.”
Kleckner adds, “These trade agreements make economic sense. They’re worth enduring a little political aggravation.”
Fischler says that second generation biofuels will be key in meeting long term renewable fuels goals for all countries, but it has to start with first generation ethanol from corn. “That’s why we have to start now,” he added. 
Republican presidential candidate John McCain visited the heart of the corn belt Friday, ate a pork chop on a stick and talked about increasing trade opportunities for agriculture.
To try and encourage greater use of biotechnology, Schafer and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance Henrietta Fore will host a side event focused on new technologies to showcase developing countries that have moved forward with public investment in adoption of bioengineered products. “Bioengineered crops are one of many situations that need to take place for increasing yields around the country if we’re going to meet the demands of increased consumption,” Schafer says.
“The roots of this Department stretch back to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln,” Bush told the assembled USDA employees, cabinet members and congressional representatives. “In 1862, President Lincoln established the first federal agency devoted to agriculture — and he called it “the people’s department.” Nearly a century-and-a-half later, the USDA can still be called “the people’s department.” With your nutrition programs and support for farmers and ranchers, you help ensure that our people are healthy and well fed. With your food safety measures, you give peace of mind to families across America. And with your conservation efforts, you help preserve our natural resources.”
While the French were busy banning the production of biotech corn last week, their neighbors to the south were importing more US corn than they have in almost a decade.
When European activist wackos act like spoiled children, they get their way.
“It does not mean that France does not participate in GMO research,” Sarkozy said. “It simply means that with the principle of precaution at stake, I am making a major political decision to carry our country to the forefront of the debate on the environment.”
The decision was welcomed by Greenpeace activists, more spoiled children
Green Party French farmers like Bove (pictured on the right in the media spotlight) are pleased and eating again, but the head of the country’s largest farmers union called the announcement “surprising and shocking. The decision was very political to please a number of people including some on a hunger strike.”
The article goes on to says that about 100 Mexican farmers partially blocked the border crossing between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, carrying signs that read “Without Corn There Is No Country.”
Litterer celebrated the victory this week with NCGA First Vice President Bob Dickey and Senator Kit Bond of Missouri who is credited with his perseverance in getting the legislation finally passed.
“First, U.S. agricultural exports currently face barriers to entering these markets. Although we allow more than 99 percent of the agricultural exports from Colombia, Panama and Peru to enter our market in the U.S. duty free, we have virtually no duty free access in their markets… 