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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Texas Governor Rick Perry has asked the Environmental Protection Agency for an immediate waiver on the state's requirements under a federal ethanol mandate because of "skyrocketing food costs," according to a release on the state's Web site Friday. Perry asked the EPA to reduce the state's federal renewable fuel standard mandate by 50% for ethanol produced from grain. "We appreciate the good intentions behind the push for renewable fuels. In fact we're diversifying our state's energy portfolio at a rapid rate, but this misguided mandate is significantly affecting Texans' family food bill," said Perry in a...

With the world consuming more food than it produces and global grain stocks the lowest for 30 years, food prices are soaring from Indonesia to Indianapolis. Some experts called it the Perfect Storm and others a tsunami. The global food crisis has a common denominator with the still unfolding subprime mortgage debacle whose losses the International Monetary Fund (IMF) now estimates at $1.1 trillion: Greed. Predatory lending coupled with criminal profiteering was behind the still unfolding subprime mortgage debacle whose losses the International Monetary Fund now estimates at $1.1 trillion. It is the largest loss of wealth in modern U.S....

MUMBAI, April 23 (Reuters) - Indian corn futures ended higher on Wednesday on media reports that the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission was opposed to a ban on commodities futures trade, analysts said. Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Tuesday opposed suggestions to ban futures trade in commodities, the Business Standard paper reported. "Some recovery was seen ...there could be some more rise..prices had fallen quite a bit in last few days," said an analyst with Motilal Oswal Commodities Broker Private Ltd. Strong export demand also supported the gains, they said. India is likely to export 2.1...

Researchers design a crop that can break down its own cellulose. In an effort to help boost the nation's supply of biofuels, researchers have created three strains of genetically modified corn to manufacture enzymes that break down the plant's cellulose into sugars that can be fermented into ethanol. Incorporating such enzymes directly into the plants could reduce the cost of converting cellulose into biofuel. Last year, new federal regulations called for production of renewable fuels to increase to 36 billion gallons annually--nearly five times current levels--by 2022. Today, nearly all fuel ethanol in the United States is produced from corn...

Many policy makers at the weekend meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank agreed that the problem is severe. Among other targets, they singled out U.S. policies pushing corn-based ethanol and other biofuels as deepening the woes."When millions of people are going hungry, it's a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels," said India's finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, in an interview. Turkey's finance minister, Mehmet Simsek, said the use of food for biofuels is "appalling."

Bush Orders $200 Million Drawdown From Emergency Reserve to Help Nations Deal With Hunger WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Monday ordered the release of $200 million in emergency aid to help nations where surging food prices have deepened hunger woes and sparked violent protests. The move comes one day after the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, called on the international community to act urgently in helping needy people and "put our money where our mouth is." Haiti, Egypt and the Philippines are among the countries facing civil unrest because of food prices and shortages.

Energy: The world's poor are learning what happens when government subsidizes the burning of food. It's time to end this madness and let the market decide if any biofuels make sense. For most Americans, the rising prices at the supermarket are definitely an annoyance, but hardly a threat to life and health. It's a different story in countries like Haiti, where food inflation has led to real hunger and, last week, to riots. News reports say the poorest Haitians are trying to get by on cookies made with dirt, vegetable oil and salt. Food riots also have roiled Egypt and...

In the last year, the price of wheat has tripled, corn doubled, and rice almost doubled. As prices soared, food riots have broken out in about 20 poor countries including Yemen, Haiti, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, and Mexico. In response some countries, such as India, Pakistan Egypt and Vietnam, are banning the export of grains and imposing food price controls. Are rising food prices the result of the economic dynamism of China and India, in which newly prosperous consumers are demanding more food—especially more meat? Perennial doomsters such as the Earth Policy Institute's Lester Brown predicted more than a...

April 4, 2008, 11:08PM Dueling demands for corn Cattle feeders say the growing need for it in ethanol is driving up the price and threatening their livelihood By BRETT CLANTON Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle TULIA — Ask John Van Pelt his thoughts on ethanol, and he's likely to pull out his adding machine and let the numbers speak for themselves. Van Pelt, the manager of a cattle feedlot in this town 50 miles south of Amarillo, is now paying $215 a ton for cattle feed — double what he spent just three years ago. With 20,000 cattle in his yard,...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Corn prices jumped to a record $6 a bushel Thursday, driven up by an expected supply shortfall that will only add to Americans' growing grocery bill and further squeeze struggling ethanol producers. ADVERTISEMENT Corn prices have shot up nearly 30 percent this year amid dwindling stockpiles and surging demand for the grain used to feed livestock and make alternative fuels including ethanol. Prices are poised to go even higher after the U.S. government this week predicted that American farmers -- the world's biggest corn producers -- will plant sharply less of the crop in 2008 compared...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- From chicken nuggets to corn flakes, food prices at grocery stores and dinner tables could be headed even higher as farmers cut back on the land they're planting in corn this spring. Corn prices already are high, and a drop in supply should keep them rising. Combine that with the huge demand for corn-based ethanol fuel -- and higher energy costs for transporting food -- and consumers are likely to see their food bills going up and up. Farmers are now expected to plant 86 million acres of corn this year, the Department of Agriculture predicted Monday,...

WASHINGTON — Farmers are expected to plant less corn this year, according to the Department of Agriculture, and that could mean higher bills at the grocery store. Corn prices have skyrocketed in recent years, helped by the burgeoning ethanol industry, which turns the crop into fuel, and rising worldwide demand for food. The higher prices have hurt poultry, beef and pork companies, who use corn to feed their animals. Farmers are expected to plant 86 million acres of corn this year, the government predicted today, down 8 percent from 2007, when the amount of corn planted was the highest since...

Grain prices soar globally Rice shortages are appearing across Asia. In Egypt, the Army is now baking bread to curb food riots. By Daniel Ten Kate | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor from the March 27, 2008 edition Bangkok, Thailand - - Rice farmers here are staying awake in shifts at night to guard their fields from thieves. In Peru, shortages of wheat flour are prompting the military to make bread with potato flour, a native crop. In Egypt, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso food riots have broken out in the past week. Around the world, governments and aid groups...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Ask about hops at the American Flatbread brewpub in Burlington, Vt., and you're likely to find yourself in cold storage, in the cellar, with brewer and co-owner Paul Sayler. Cloistered toward the back, a dozen or so half-full foil bags of hop pellets, hoarded last year, sit on a shelf. Sayler opens a bag, cradles the hops in his hands and takes a whiff of the signature fragrance that microbrew aficionados crave. "This is my little meager trove of hops," mourns Sayler, glancing at what's left on the rack: some German Spalt and Tetnang varieties, a...

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Contact: Grady Semmens gsemmens@ucalgary.ca 403-220-7722 University of Calgary Corn's roots dig deeper into South AmericaEarliest signs of maize as staple food found after spreading south from Mexican homeland Corn has long been known as the primary food crop in prehistoric North and Central America. Now it appears it may have been an important part of the South American diet for much longer than previously thought, according to new research by University of Calgary archaeologists who are cobbling together the ancient history of plant domestication in the New World. In a paper published in the March 24 advanced online edition of...

Ethanol industry losing its momentum By Michael Hooper | MORRIS NEWS SERVICE Tuesday, March 11, 2008 Story last updated at 3/11/2008 - 2:42 am TOPEKA, Kan. - Tough times have struck the ethanol industry as profit margins have declined while corn prices have soared. Last month, Cargill suspended development of an ethanol plant near Topeka. An ethanol plant that opened last fall in Pratt, Kan., already has stopped producing ethanol. A new biofuels plant in Mead, Neb., shut down last fall. Another ethanol plant in Canton, Ill., is in bankruptcy. The industry was skyrocketing five years ago when the price...

One of the many mandates of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for oil companies to increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline. President Bush said, during his 2006 State of the Union address, "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." Let's look at some of the "wonders" of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline. Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must...

The pending global food crisis is due, in part, to a rich twist of irony: One of the factors driving up the price of T-bone steak, a dozen eggs and a carton of milk is a perfectly edible vegetable, a staple of many diets --corn. Adding to the irony, we're growing more corn than ever before. We're just not eating it. Corn is being diverted from human consumption, kicking off a domino effect of problems tied to food prices. It starts with ethanol produced from corn, which optimists hope will help solve the U.S. reliance on foreign oil, as well...

What is the price for America’s new emphasis on energy independence? For beer drinkers, about a buck a six-pack. Across the country, farm fields once used for growing hops and barley for beer are sprouting corn, which has become lucrative because of President Bush’s support of ethanol, a corn-based alternative fuel. And then, basic economics comes into play: With demand for hops and barley outstripping supply, the cost for those commodities goes up. That means lovers of craft beers and microbrews may be seeing red or feeling nauseated — and that’s not the effect of one too many oatmeal stouts....

This is one of my recent columns, addressing ill-advised corn subsidies... From the 10 December 2007 Lockport Union Sun and Journal (Lockport, NY) CORN SUBSIDIES SHOULD GO DOWN By Bob Confer Federal subsidization of agriculture has become a necessary evil, more or less out of its own existence. Such is the outcome when government so greatly interferes in capitalistic endeavors: once the dominoes are set into motion by its "invisible hand" the damage is done and the pieces can never be put back to normal. We cannot go back to a true free market economy in regard to our foodstuff...

Just one month ago, a study conducted by a team of American researchers concluded that there was nothing more environmental-friendly than the biofuel crops, that could reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 94% and produce five times more energy. New studies however warn that by transforming the various ecosystems into biofuel crop fields would only accentuate the global warming phenomenon rather than reducing it. According to the latest estimations, converting natural ecosystems into biofuel crop fields is likely to release up to 420 times more carbon. “The land we’re likely to plow up is the land that we’ve had taking...

Ethanol Fuel is not so Green The Australian Department of Parliamentary Services has released a research paper on "The economic effects of an ethanol mandate". Published on 22 January 2008, it is available from the Parliamentary Library website. Paul Syvret, in the Brisbane Courier Mail article Ethanol fuel is not so green, expressed his view on ethanol and summed up the paper by saying: ETHANOL is not the answer for Australia's future fuel needs.It is not green, it is not economically viable, and any move to mandate its inclusion in fuel would have enormous repercussions for other sectors of Australian...

February 3, 2005 -- Brooklyn jurors on the terror-financing case of a Yemeni sheik yesterday viewed secret tapes of him huddling with an assistant — allegedly to create code words for weapons and ammunition. Not knowing his German hotel room was wired, Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad allegedly suggested to his assistant that instead of referring to a shortage of ammunition, they could say, "The corn is running low." "A person must be clever," al-Moayad, 56, tells Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, 31, on the tape. "For example, if you wish to buy ammunition . . . 'By God, Sheik Mohammed,...

CHICAGO — Corn usage remains strong despite the highest futures prices since 1996, and analysts are dubious whether the old market adage that "high prices will cure high prices," will occur in the near term. Chicago Board of Trade corn futures have recently rallied to over $5 per bushel on ideas that 2008 corn acreage will need to remain at high levels to supply enough of the grain to domestic and international customers, and in an effort to ration demand. One segment of corn demand that shows no signs of slowing despite high prices is exports. ... Last spring, U.S....

For the past five years, a group of area residents have heated their homes with stoves that burn corn, an energy source they say is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than gas, oil or electricity, and one they hope others also will use. Almost 70 families in the Takoma Park Silver Spring Cornburners Cooperative use corn-burning stoves that produce a clean-burning fuel to heat their homes.

An Iowahawk Salute to America's Corn-Crazy Electoral Overlords Every four years, America kicks off its time-honored democratic ritual of selecting the next president of the United States. As always this process begins with the Iowa Caucuses, which will have an important say in determining the final nominees. And, as always, this process is marked by another time-honored ritual: millions of angry non-Iowans asking, "who died and made that stupid state God?" As a native of the Hawkeye State, with family roots stretching five generations deep into the fertile black topsoil of America's heartland pork basket, I have roll my eyes...

sugar tariffs, put in place by law and enforced by the USDA, are so complicated that many people give up worrying about it. After all, paying $2.25 for a five pound bag of sugar is no big deal. Unless you consider that we could be paying as low as a dollar for that five pound bag, and wholesale purchases of sugar by companies like Coca-Cola, Heinz, and Kraft would pay even less. So here's the Sugar Tariff in action: First, USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation lends money each year to sugar cane processors at a specific rate per pound of sugar....

<p>Little over a year ago, ethanol was winning the hearts and wallets of both Main Street and Wall Street, with promises of greater U.S. energy independence, fewer greenhouse gases and help for the farm economy. Today, the corn-based biofuel is under siege.</p>

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Bo Pelini is the new coach at Nebraska, leaving the defensive coordinator post at LSU for a job many Cornhusker fans thought he should have been given four years ago. Interim athletic director and former coach Tom Osborne announced Pelini's hiring Sunday, after introducing him to the players. "We need a head coach with strong defensive credentials and great leadership," Osborne said. "We were also looking for someone who can inspire confidence and get players to play with great effort. "And, of course, we also wanted our new head coach to understand our traditions, including the importance...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - A grain bin collapsed and sent a tidal wave of corn into a home, sweeping it off its foundation, trapping a family of four and shaking the ground for miles. One man was taken to a hospital after being buried for hours in grain and debris in Hillsboro in southeast Iowa. The bin - about 100 feet in diameter, 90 feet high and containing more than 500,000 bushels of corn - collapsed Monday evening. The force of the grain broke the walls of Jesse and Jennifer Kellett's home and sent the roof crashing down. "The...

(ATAW/AR) I am sick of the rationally challenged (lunatic), factually challenged (liars) (am I PC enough?) crowd and their childish activities to push their agenda – whether it be MoveOn.org, Media Matters and other petty little smear merchants such as the suspected phony truck driver and RetroMex Web Design owner, the Rev. Porter Corn of Life on the Road and Mexico Trucker. Life on the Road is a blog owned and funded by International Trucks theoretically to promote a positive image of the American trucker.

NEVADA, Iowa, Sept. 24 — The ethanol boom of recent years — which spurred a frenzy of distillery construction, record corn prices, rising food prices and hopes of a new future for rural America — may be fading. Only last year, farmers here spoke of a biofuel gold rush, and they rejoiced as prices for ethanol and the corn used to produce it set records. But companies and farm cooperatives have built so many distilleries so quickly that the ethanol market is suddenly plagued by a glut, in part because the means to distribute it have not kept pace. The...

Everyone seems to think that ethanol is a good way to make cars greener. Everyone is wrong SOMETIMES you do things simply because you know how to. People have known how to make ethanol since the dawn of civilisation, if not before. Take some sugary liquid. Add yeast. Wait. They have also known for a thousand years how to get that ethanol out of the formerly sugary liquid and into a more or less pure form. You heat it up, catch the vapour that emanates, and cool that vapour down until it liquefies. The result burns. And when Henry Ford...

RICHLAND, Mich. (AP) - It's a corny tribute to the late Gerald Ford - and it can be fully appreciated only from the air. A farm not far from where Ford grew up created a maze in a cornfield in the likeness of the nation's 38th president, who died last December. Each year, Gull Meadow Farms near Richland cuts a maze in its corn fields. A company that specializes in corn maze design drew up the plans for the Ford portrait, which says PRESIDENT FORD across the top and THANKS below. "Instead of just creating a path for people to...

RICHLAND, Mich. - It’s a corny tribute to the late Gerald Ford — and it can be fully appreciated only from the air. A farm not far from where Ford grew up created a maze in a cornfield in the likeness of the nation’s 38th president, who died last December. Each year, Gull Meadow Farms near Richland cuts a maze in its corn fields. A company that specializes in corn maze design drew up the plans for the Ford portrait, which says PRESIDENT FORD across the top and THANKS below.

First it was corn. Now wheat is getting the blame. Earlier this year, corn began getting pricey because it was in high demand to make ethanol. That sent prices rising for other corn-dependent products, including milk and meat. Now wheat is costing more and more because of poor harvests and greater global demand, sending grocery bills still higher. The price of wheat futures reached a record $9 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade on Wednesday. And the higher food prices that have resulted from the increase -- items like baguettes, rigatoni and cupcakes cost more -- come at...

IOWA CITY - The Hawkeyes play ISU this weekend. The University of Iowa is in the middle of "beat state week." But the school says it has had its fill of one contest in particular. Apparently there is such a thing as too much sweet corn. The University of Iowa was supposed to have a day of burgers and blues. Only the burgers were corn and the blues were more than music. There is a certain sadness that comes with the cancellation of a corn-eating contest. Shannon Thomas of the Alumni Association said, “There has been some disappointment about the...

Due to demand, US farmers are growing more corn than they have since WWII. Now, researchers are looking at all those green fields and their possible effect on local weather patterns. Fred Bumb has been growing corn for nearly 60 years in the bottomlands of Vanderburgh County. Bumb credits good weather with this year's strong crop, "There's so many things about farming that you have to depend on, such as the good lord and the weather." How the weather affects crops is obvious, but new research from a Canadian climatologist shows the opposite may also be true. The explosive growth...

‘Buy Feed Corn: They’re about to stop making it…’ F. William Engdahl July 26 2007 That bowl of Kellogg’s Cornflakes on the breakfast table, or the portion of pasta or corn tortillas, cheese or meat on the table is going to rise in price over the coming months as sure as the sun rises in the East. Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the new world food price shock, conveniently timed to accompany our current world oil price shock. Curiously it’s ominously similar in many respects to the early 1970’s when prices for oil and food both exploded by several hundred...

Tequila is key to a great margarita, but many farmers in Mexico are now ditching the blue agave plant used to make the liquor to cash in on corn and the demand for alternative fuel — and some say that could lead to the great tequila shortage. In the highlands of Jalisco, workers known as jimadores harvest blue agave plants. They slash off the sharp leaves to get to the heart, which is used to make tequila. The plants take at least six years to ripen, and patience can pay off when agave prices are high. However, now some growers...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. farmers are on track to grow their biggest corn crop ever, an astonishing 12.8 billion bushels, a government report said on Friday, enough for livestock feeders and the booming fuel ethanol industry. "There will be enough corn," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said. "It looks to me ... some of the pressure went off." Ethanol production is forecast to double by the end of 2008 to more than 13 billion gallons. Demand for corn will continue to grow in the near term despite mammoth crops. A bushel of corn, the major feedstock for ethanol, yields 2.8 gallons...

LUBBOCK, Texas — Motorists might save a few cents a gallon filling their tanks with ethanol, but they could soon be paying more for a burger and a milkshake as a result. Demand for corn to make ethanol is soaring and so are the prices, which have more than doubled in the past year. That’s bad news for beef and dairy producers who depend on grain to feed their herds. Many say the cost will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher grocery bills this year. “There’s a lot of concern among cattle feeders,’’ said Jim Gill,...

China’s communist rulers announced a moratorium on the production of ethanol from corn and other food crops yesterday at the very time that Western leaders are rushing to embrace alternative food-based fuel technology. Beijing’s move underlines concerns that ethanol production is driving up rapidly the costs of corn and grain. It appears to reflect a growing reality about food-based alternative fuel: it is far more expensive both economically and environmentally, than Western politicians are likely to admit. Calls for biofuels are politically attractive for European and US politicians, amid rising petrol prices and concerns about global warming and an overreliance...

It may help at the gas pump, but the ripples emanating from the ethanol boom are higher prices for corn, fertilizer and the food on your table. Investors, adjust your portfolios

Should we use ethanol for fuel? Certainly. Should we use corn to make that ethanol? Certainly not. Sure, we want to get over our need for foreign oil. Sure, we want to find a renewable fuel for our vehicles. Sure, ethanol could work just fine. But don’t make it from corn. Here’s what I’m talking about. The president and a bunch of powerful people in Congress have been working over recent years to hold up corn-based ethanol as the answer to our future energy-supply needs. When he talks about it, the president says corn-based ethanol is our only hope of...

The rising demand for corn as a source of ethanol-blended fuel is largely to blame for increasing food costs around the world, and Canada is not immune, say industry experts. Food prices rose 10 per cent in 2006, "driven mainly by surging prices of corn, wheat and soybean oil in the second part of the year," the International Monetary Fund said in a report. "Looking ahead, rising demand for biofuels will likely cause the prices of corn and soybean oil to rise further," the authors wrote in the report released last month. Statistics Canada says consumers in the country paid...

Senators moved ahead Wednesday on legislation to replace one-quarter of the nation's gasoline with ethanol

JENNINGS, La. — The sun shone brightly on the crowd gathered at the rusting old oil refinery here, as company officials showed off diagrams explaining how they planned to turn weeds and agricultural wastes into car fuel. Government officials gave optimistic speeches. In the background, workers prepared a new network of pipes, tanks and conveyor belts. That was in October 1998, when ethanol from crop wastes seemed to be just around the corner. It still is. Last February, company officials gathered here once again, to break ground on a plant designed to make ethanol by yet another method. At the...

Two weeks into spring, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Snow flurries fell in metro Atlanta and parts of North Georgia overnight. The record cold was expected to last through the weekend across the Southeast, inspiring farmers and parents alike to bundle their crops and children. Last week felt more like the start of summer, with temperatures approaching 80 degrees in Atlanta. On Saturday morning, temperatures in the metro area were in the upper 20s _ with wind gusts of up to 30 miles per hour making it feel more like the teens. Forecasters said it was going...