Ethanol Concerns Grow

<a href="http://www.cattlenetwork.com/vetlife_content.asp?contentid=96920" >Ethanol Production Threatening Livestock Industry, Food Supply</a><br />n<br />n<blockquote>Think tanks and livestock producers alike are alarmed at the rate of growth of the ethanol industry and its effect on feed supplies for the meat industry.<br />n<br />nRon Plain, an agricultural economist at the University of Missouri, says that increases in corn costs have already added 25 percent to the cost of raising hogs to slaughter weight, from a projected $40 per hundredweight in early 2006 to an actual cost of about $50 per hundredweight. If corn continues to the $4.05 per bushel price level considered the break-even in ethanol production, the increased feed costs will add 31 percent to the cost of hog production.<br />n<br />nGene Gourley, an Iowa pork producer and swine nutritionist, testified on behalf of the National Pork Producers Council to the Senate Agriculture Committee Wednesday that ethanol producers are receiving huge subsidies of $1.53 per bushel of corn purchased and tax credits of $0.51 per gallon of ethanol produced, resulting in runaway growth in ethanol production. “These incentives have the ethanol industry growing at an almost unbelievable pace,“ he said in his testimony. “New plants are springing up everywhere, and they’re using a lot of corn.“</blockquote><br />n<br />nIn a way I keep laughing about these stories. I have been expressing my concern about the energy industry consuming our food supply for quite a while now and it seems like just now other people are starting to catch on.<br />n<br />nI did find this comaprison from Lester R. Brown interesting to say the least.<br />n<br />n<blockquote>One 25-gallon tank of ethanol, he says, consumes an amount of corn that would directly or indirectly feed a person for a year.</blockquote><br />n<br />nSo it really seems my concerns about food security and ethanol are very real. I am not just blowing smoke, this ethanol boom is putting our food supply in jeporady and hunger is a real issue to be concerned about. In a way this is all self correcting though. All the ethanol plants either in production now or being built, will drive the price of corn high enough so that the plants will start losing money and then a bunch of them will go bust. With oil prices drifting down and the cost of corn drifting up, this break even point will be reached sooner than we all think.<br />n<br />nWould higher food prices cause a consumer backlash against ethanol? I'm not real sure. I don't know that the majority of people would understand all the relationships and understand that ethanol is the reason food prices are rising. Would the consumers also then understand that the government subsidies of the ethanol industry are part of the reason for the higher food prices? Would this then cause a backlash against the government?<br />n<br />nThinking about government subsides to the ethanol industry, what is the government going to do when ethanol plants do start driving the price of corn so high the plants start losing money? Since the Government is so hot and bothered for ethanol will they then start subsidizing the purchase of corn for the plants so the plants can stay in operation driving the price of food for consumers even higher?<br />n<br />nReally, the only solution to this problem is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol">Cellulosic ethanol</a>. This process uses waste materials instead of food materials to make the ethanol. Then all the questions about using our food for energy would be abated. The problem is that Cellulosic ethanol has not been perfected yet. To save our food supply maybe we need to invest more money into R&D on Cellulosic ethanol. I think that would solve this particular problem.<br />n<br />n<strong>A Chicken McNugget is corn upon corn upon corn, beginning with corn-fed chicken all the way through the obscure food additives and the corn starch that holds it together. Michael Pollan </strong>