Posted on 07/26/2007 8:47:56 AM PDT by Uncledave
If farmers paid Kelloggs to take their corn, corn flakes would still be expensive. There is some sort of space-age technology involved in taking corn and making flakes from it...so they can justify their prices...in some way or another.
Your statement doesn't pass the smell test.
Prior to our making ethanol out of corn the corn went for food production, either our own or for animals. The stalk still goes into animal feed the same as before, so no net change.
An ear of corn is apx. 77 g, 20 g is carbs, 3 g is protein and 1 g is fat. So you are right that carbs are almost 1/3 of the corn but the remaining valuable part is only 5% or so. There is no way even if we doubled or tripled our corn production that that remaining 5% can make up the lost production. We would need to increase the cultivated area by 5 times to break even. It isn't going to happen. Food and gasoline prices are going to go up.
This ethanol program has to be the stupidest program that the government has ever done and that is saying a lot. It takes more than a gallon of diesel to make a gallon of ethanol.
This type of idiocy on the part of our elected officials is treasonous. We have to increase our importation of oil (causing the price to rise) and we have to pay more for food because there is less of it.
Your numbers are wrong. They appear to be from COOKED corn--not dry raw grain, which according to other sources is 67% carbohydrate---not 77%. So if we triple corn production, we WILL make up the difference just from corn production.
And you fail to take into consideration the contribution of the increase in soybean production for biodiesel, whose production will also go up, and which has a vastly different carb/protein/fat ratio.
I stick by my prediction. In the long run, the net result of increased demand for biofuels will be a decrease in food prices.
OK for giggles lets use your numbers with the carbs in corn at 67% and lets be generous and say that protein and fat make up 10%. So if you tripled production (very hard to do by the way) you would replace less than half of the food production lost to ethanol production. Remember all the carbs get used up and you are only feeding protein and fat to the animals and very low quality protein and fat at that.
All this Ethanol business is is a scam that each of us are paying for three times. First in taxes, second in higher fuel prices and third in higher food prices. It would be two thirds cheaper if we just handed ADM and the farmers cash and asked them not to make ethanol.
Every Representative that voted for this Ethanol scam should be tried for treason if they are competent enough to stand for trial but I fear that non of them are competent, as their support for ethanol proves.
Food is scared to life. It’s godless to burn it like gasoline. Far better to dig up our vast Western coal reserves and convert coal to diesel and jet fuel. If I were king I would mandate all new power plants to be coal or nuclear
sacred!
People seem to think ethanol is the ONLY product derived from corn and the rest is wasted.
Before corn was converted into ethanol the majority of the bulk went to livestock feed rather than directly into human food. As for the stalk as food, the only real way a corn stalk can be a significant part of the food is if the corn is harvested stalk and all and piled into huge piles.
The moisture content causes fermentation of the sugars and the solids break down, making the mixture more easily digested by cattle. While this process can make good livestock feed, it is most inefficient. There is about a 20 to 30% waste. Many times this option is used as a last resort because the cost of shelling and drying the corn in bins exceeds the market price, or storage capacity was exceeded by a bumper crop.
Otherwise, the corn stalk has little feed value after it has dried.
With ethanol there is still a high protein corn mash that still goes to feed livestock. Some volume may be lost in processing. But that would be true even if the corn was going directly to corn flakes.
So your assertion is that corn was not worth producing economically as a stand alone product. And now since ethanol is also coming as a by product that somehow the corn is even more expensive to produce.
The inflation of food prices is a result of commodity traders and speculators (the same ones who make oil prices go up and down).
All the kings who make energy decisions have neglected the real forms of energy available in the US. Thanks to the enviro lobby.
Heaven forbid a mining company make PROFITS from coal, or a utility company make PROFITS from electricity generation.
But we the kings can allow farmers to make a few more pennies and it will be good.
Maybe we have been sold down the road on the ethanol wagon. But I see that ethanol wagon as the only energy wagon still moving. The logical choices have been nixed by congress. Until they get out of the pockets of the environazis, America is heading for deep sh#t with no wading boots.
The increasing cost of foodstuffs is much more attributable to the increased price of fuel than the increased price paid for commodities.
How much corn is in a box of corn flakes? Two cents worth at most. How much in a bag of tortillas. Same.
Is there a more efficient source of renewable fuel? Absolutely. Cellulosic-base ethanol is much more preferred and more sustainable. Is the promise of ethanol really just a pipe dream? I've cautioned farmers to beware of folks who promise boom times ahead for the farmer. But to blame high food prices on corn growers? That dog won't hunt.
Called silage isn't it? All the old time farmers fed their livestock the corn stalk. And it's very efficient because you take that cow manure and spread on your fields to grow next years crop. Hopefully in rotation
I would dial the clock back and use today's technology to burn coal cleaner than ever for electricity and reduce use of petroleum on the farm, it is made into artificial fertilizers. Spread manure with a diesel powered tractor and the diesel is mqade from coal
how did you rocngressman/candidate vote?
http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/109_PL_109-58.html
Yes but apx. 90% of the food value (the carbs) has been removed and cattle need the carbs more than they need the protein and fat.
So your assertion is that corn was not worth producing economically as a stand alone product. And now since ethanol is also coming as a by product that somehow the corn is even more expensive to produce.
No I did not assert that corn is not worth producing economically as a stand alone product. And no, turning ethanol into corn does not make it more expensive to produce, it makes it more profitable to the farmer though because he can demand a higher price for it.
The inflation of food prices is a result of commodity traders and speculators (the same ones who make oil prices go up and down).
Commodity traders may occasionally increase the volotility of the market (generally they do the opposite) but again you are wrong. It is simple supply and demand that set the price. Take away the subsidies for ethanol production and the demand will fall as well as the price.
I really, really wish that there was a simple solution (there is) but ethanol isn't it.
In the big farm bill that was passed last week, the subsidies directly to farmers was only 15% of the bill.
The majority of the so called “farm bill” (over 50%) went to food stamps and nutrition programs. 20% goes to environmental land programs.
Let me float this idea for discussion.
If the government is focused on giving away 15 Billion dollars worth of food to freeloaders, isn’t it in their best interests to somehow, even artificially, keep the cost of foods down? How do they do that? Pay farmers not to produce.
The American farmer is the most efficient producer in the world. They have been paid to keep idle millions of acres of land in CRP because they can produce so much.
So logically, the cost of food could be even less if more land was back in to production. Except for the reason that farmers will continue to over produce and then go broke because supply far exceeds demand, which has been the case over the past 3 decades.
So my assertion is this. Since there are millions of acres available that can have production resumed, there should be no reason why corn production cannot be increased substantially to meet the demands of both food and ethanol
And I point out again that my point was BIOFUELS, not ETHANOL. You continue to ignore the parallel market and byproducts provided by biodiesel production from soybeans, which exactly complement ethanol in multiple ways. The byproduct from soybean biodiesel production is low in fat, but high in carbs and protein. Combined with the low carb products from ethanol production, you end up with a high protein, intermediate fat, intermediate carb mix of nutrients. In addition to which, the crop rotation of corn with soybeans is almost the perfect "couple" to maintain soil fertility.
If I were Archer, Daniels, Midland, I'd be partnering with some utility company that wants to build a new nuclear plant somewhere along the Mississippi River, and build both an ethanol and biodiesel combined production plant right next door.
And I suggest you study up a little more on the quality of the nutrients in distillers grain---it is NOT "low quality protein and fat". On the contrary, it is a relatively high quality feed product.
Oh, and don't try to feed me any bullshit about how "hard" it will be for the American farmer to raise production to any desired level. I grew up on a farm which raised both corn and soybeans, so I'm VERY familiar with how both are produced.
I don't follow your argument. Are you being sarcastic? Paying farmers not to produce raises the price.
The American farmer is the most efficient producer in the world. They have been paid to keep idle millions of acres of land in CRP because they can produce so much.
The problem with your argument is that the acreage that the farmers let go idle is the worst land that they have, where there costs are the highest and the production is the lowest. Marginal cropland at the best.
So my assertion is this. Since there are millions of acres available that can have production resumed, there should be no reason why corn production cannot be increased substantially to meet the demands of both food and ethanol
The energy cost for producing ethanol from the marginal land is even higher than from the fertile land. You would be simply making the problem worse instead of better.
If it takes more than a gallon of diesel to make a gallon of ethanol why would you want to increase the production of ethanol? The more ethanol our country makes the faster it goes broke. Subsidies lose money.
>All the old time farmers fed their livestock the corn stalk. And it’s very efficient because you take that cow manure and spread on your fields to grow next years crop.<
Modern farmers use chemical fertilizer to squeeze far more corn from each acre of land. Land fertilized with manure simply cannot come close to matching chemical’s results.
Here’s the irony - the chemical fertilizer is petroleum based.
Biodiesel is even worse than ethanol in terms of the energy required to produce it. If the byproduct from sybean is so high in carbs then why not use it to make ethanol to use your logic. There is no free lunch.
If I were Archer, Daniels, Midland, I'd be partnering with some utility company that wants to build a new nuclear plant somewhere along the Mississippi River, and build both an ethanol and biodiesel combined production plant right next door.
You have that right, except forget the ethanol and biodiesel part. Use it for coal or shale gasification and then you will be on the right track.
And I suggest you study up a little more on the quality of the nutrients in distillers grain---it is NOT "low quality protein and fat". On the contrary, it is a relatively high quality feed product.
But we aren't talking about distillers grain are we? I have sold lots of barley to Anheuser Busch.
Oh, and don't try to feed me any bullshit about how "hard" it will be for the American farmer to raise production to any desired level. I grew up on a farm which raised both corn and soybeans, so I'm VERY familiar with how both are produced.
LOL Are you suggesting that farmers can simply double or triple the production per acre anytime they feel like it? I grew up on a farm too and I guarantee that farmers try to get the maximum that they can out of each acre of land that they own. For having been a farmer you are incredibly naive about the realities of farming.
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