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IT is not often that a stroke of a pen can quickly undo the ravages of nature, but federal regulators now have an opportunity to do just that. Americans’ food budgets will be hit hard by the ongoing Midwestern drought, the worst since 1956. Food bills will rise and many farmers will go bust. An act of God, right? Well, the drought itself may be, but a human remedy for some of the fallout is at hand — if only the federal authorities would act. By suspending renewable-fuel standards that were unwise from the start, the Environmental Protection Agency could...

ndur Goklany calculated that biofuels policies killed nearly 200,000 people  in 2010 alone. That was before this study showed things may be worse than we suspected. Brazil is the largest sugar cane ethanol producer in the world, but people are burning four times the area of sugar cane plantations than previously realized, and it’s producing far more pollution than they thought. For every unit of energy generated, the ethanol-biofuel use produces a lot less CO2 (plant fertilizer) but more volatile organic compounds (VOC’s), more carbon monoxide, more nitrous oxides, as well as more sulphur dioxides. (See Graph b below).Compared to...

[Snip]...I have long felt that one of the biggest threats to the U.S. ethanol industry is a major drought/crop failure in the heart of corn country. This year we may be experiencing such an event. Recent reports indicate that what had been expected to be a record crop of corn has been downgraded such that only 40% of the corn crop is being classified as in good or excellent condition. This is down 48% versus last week and 69% versus a year ago.

The world is facing a new food crisis as the worst US drought in more than 50 years pushes agricultural commodity prices to record highs. Corn and soyabean prices surged to record highs on Thursday, surpassing the peaks of the 2007-08 crisis that sparked food riots in more than 30 countries. Wheat prices are not yet at record levels but have rallied more than 50 per cent in five weeks, exceeding prices reached in the wake of Russia’s 2010 export ban. The drought in the US, which supplies nearly half the world’s exports of corn and much of its soyabeans...

Corn prices are nearing the record highs of last summer as the U.S. Midwest suffers its worst drought since 1956. Shoppers should expect higher grocery bills, because corn is used in three-quarters of supermarket products. But don’t panic. Overall cost hikes are likely to be modest. “A 50% increase in the price of corn tends to raise total shopping bills by about 1%,” says Ricky Volpe, a research economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Corn’s price has jumped 45% this summer. Of course, even a modest increase to shopping bills is unwelcome news for households on tight budgets. Strange...

Oppressive heat and a worsening drought in the U.S. Midwest pushed grain prices near or past records on Monday as crops wilted, cities baked and concerns grew about food and fuel price inflation in the world's top food exporter. Soybean prices at the Chicago Board of Trade set a record high and corn closed near a record as millions of acres of crops seared in triple-digit heat in the Corn Belt. Corn fields have been plowed up in many locations for lack of rain. Now soybeans, which develop later than corn, are in the bull's eye. "I get on my...

Corn Is Still Ripping Higher, And Is Now Up More Than 50% In Less Than A Month Joe Weisenthal Jul. 16, 2012, 8:14 PM Non-stop going up. Thanks to the drought... December corn futures via the CME, now up more than 50% from recent lows.

<p>Corn, soybean and wheat prices have soared lately due to poor crop estimates amid extreme drought conditions in 26 states.</p> <p>The blistering summer and ongoing drought conditions have the prompted the U.S. Agriculture Department to declare a federal disaster area in more than 1,000 counties covering 26 states. That's almost one-third of all the counties in the United States, making it the largest distaster declaration ever made by the USDA.</p>

Corn Futures SURGE As USDA Cuts Crop Forecast By 12% Mamta Badkar Jul. 11, 2012, 8:38 AM Corn prices are jumping after the USDA cut corn yield by 20 bushels per acre to 146 bushels per acre. This is down from 166 bushels per acre because of poor crop conditions from early June and because of the heatwave and drought conditions plaguing the Midwest. The corn crop forecast was cut 12 percent to 12.97 billion bushels. Corn futures are up 3.20 percent on the news. From the report: "Persistent and extreme June dryness across the central and eastern Corn Belt...

All over America the corn is dying. If drought conditions persist in the middle part of the country, wheat and soybeans will be next. Weeks of intense heat combined with extraordinarily dry conditions have brought many U.S. corn farmers to the brink of total disaster. If there is not significant rainfall soon, many farmers will be financially ruined. This period of time is particularly important for corn because this is when pollination is supposed to happen. But the unprecedented heat and the extremely dry conditions are playing havoc with that process. With each passing day things get even worse. We...

Harvests of Russian wheat and Ukrainian corn set to hit recordsKYIV, Ukraine (MarketWatch) — Fueled by record harvests, Russia and Ukraine are expected to surge to the top ranks of the global export markets for wheat and corn in the coming years, a development that will open up new investment opportunities in commodities and equities. The surge in Russia, which will see its exports of wheat explode to more than 20 million metric tons this year from four million in the 2010-2011 year, is powered by robust production and inventory, rising global demand and lower domestic prices. Meanwhile, Ukraine will...

And they ignore their network's own role in forwarding the "Is Obama a Muslim?" question.

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), which mandated a steep rise in domestic ethanol production, is causing unforeseen negative consequences for food prices while failing to live up to the desired gasoline results and other expectations, concludes a Texas A&M University research team headed by an economics professor who studies energy issues.James Griffin James M. Griffin, director of the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics & Public Policy, which is part of Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, and Mauricio Cifuentes Soto, a graduate student assisting him, say in their report that the goal of...

The death of a man in Doddridge County has sparked a police investigation and troopers want you to be safe. A man in his 60's died this week at Ruby Memorial Hospital, supposedly after drinking poisoned moonshine he got in the county. Troopers say the unidentified man drank from a bottle of moonshine he got from a friend on Saturday night. He was flown to Ruby Memorial Hospital after what was believed to be stroke symptoms. He died at the hospital Tuesday. After testing and investigations, it was determined that the tainted moonshine shut down the man's internal organs. Troopers...

Evidence for Oldest Popcorn in South America Discovered Remy Melina, LiveScience Staff Writer Date: 20 January 2012 Time: 10:50 AM ET They may not have had television sets, but ancient Peruvians did share one part of our movie-watching culture: popcorn. Researchers have found evidence that societies living along the coast of Peru were eating the air-filled snack about 1,000 years earlier than previously estimated — even predating the use of ceramic pottery. Corn husks, stalks, cobs and tassels (pollen-producing flowers on corn) dating from 6,700 to 3,000 years ago were unearthed at Paredones and Huaca Prieta, two sites on Peru's...

Energy Policy: Congress let the corn-based fuel's tax credits expire when it adjourned, but continuing mandates for its use means pump prices will go even higher and the money saved will be spent elsewhere. Subsidies for ethanol expired over the weekend, ironically just days before the Iowa caucuses. In their 33 years of existence, ethanol subsidies, the original poster child for crony capitalism, with an estimated cost of at least $45 billion and an annual price tag in recent years of $6 billion, have been a political sacred cow, letting farm state politicians bring home the bacon in exchange for...

The Iowa corn growers association released a report card today, rating Republican primary candidates on their support of "corn grower's legislative priorities." Candidates who oppose subsidies, like Representative Ron Paul and Herman Cain got "D." grades (Only their criticism of the EPA spared them "F"s. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich got the highest grade. He and President Obama were praised for their support of economically disastrous policies like ethanol subsidies.

Want to know something almost as scary as an Obama re-election?Many news sources have reported over the past couple of months how Monsanto Co., the world's biggest vegetable seed-maker, will begin selling biotech, or genetically engineered, sweet corn this fall for U.S. consumers.There are at least three alarming aspects to this particular veggie-gene mutation and its distribution.First, if you wonder why the sweet corn's genes are being triple-altered, wonder no more. Bloomberg reported that "the sweet corn seeds are engineered to kill insects living above and below ground and to tolerate applications of the company's Roundup herbicide, Consuelo Madere, Monsanto...

[snip] So the United States now imports ethanol from Brazil to meet the federal mandate for ethanol use, and yet those imports are subject to a 54-cents-per-gallon tariff to protect the U.S. domestic ethanol industry. Ethanol is also imported from Canada, which is not subject to a tariff, and owing to trade agreements and foreign policy considerations, the United States is committed to importing ethanol from all Caribbean Basin countries, with special set-asides for El Salvador and Costa Rica. Remember: Despite all this import and export activity, ethanol policy was justified on grounds of U.S. energy independence. Yet, just as...

News Release - National Academies: Ethanol Worsens Greenhouse Gases Published October 4, 2011 Washington, D.C. -- A new report by the National Academy of Sciences has found that corn ethanol production increases greenhouse gas emissions and damages soil, air, water and wildlife habitat. As well it says advanced biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol are unlikely to prove practical substitutes for either corn ethanol or fossil fuels. “This report highlights the severe damage to the environment from corn-based ethanol,” said Sheila Karpf, EWG’s legislative and policy analyst. “It underscores just how misguided U.S. biofuels policy has become. It catalogs the environmentally...