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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...

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I've seen two reports today that talked about the weather over the midwest and the corn. The corn crop just about nationwide is a dismal failure due to droughts and prices are expected to climb by at least fifty percent. For many products that use corn, that means BUY IT NOW! Sadly, there is another outcome, farmers were interviewed and for them it means one thing - they can't feed their stock, so they end up going to the slaughterhouse. So soon, there will be a glut of meat on the market, expect prices to plummet (before they rise almost...

Automakers and the oil industry released a report today that casts doubt on the safety of gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol and shows that at least some engines running the fuel suffered damage during recent testing. But ethanol backers and the Obama administration immediately countered that the study was fundamentally flawed, because it used engines with known durability issues” and didn’t include control group testing of the 10 percent ethanol blend that is now the standard at filling stations nationwide. The dispute is the latest round in a long-running fight over the 15 percent ethanol fuel blend known as E15....

WASHINGTON -- The fuel ethanol boom and high crop prices will cut U.S. farm subsidy spending by $31 billion through 2016, a dramatic drop in the cost of the farm program, the Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday. In a semiannual report, CBO estimated farm subsidies would cost $10 billion this year and the annual cost "will range between $8 billion and $10 billion over the next decade." The forecasts are expected to constrain this year's overhaul of farm policy by Congress. The 2002 farm law, which allocates about $20 billion a year on farm supports, expires in the fall....

High Demand Causes Surge in Corn Prices By LIBBY QUAID ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - Ethanol plants and foreign buyers are gobbling the nation's corn supplies, pushing prices as high as $3.40 a bushel, the Agriculture Department said Friday. Farmers haven't seen prices this high for more than a decade. The monthly crop report forecast even better prices than in December, raising the estimate 10 cents to $3 to $3.40 a bushel. Robust prices have made corn more expensive for livestock feed and as food for people. But a drop-off in those uses was more than offset by growing demand...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told The Daily Caller in a video interview that he is dropping out of the Republican presidential race 'probably about Wednesday' May 2 and endorsing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Gingrich, alongside his wife Callista, said the GOP's message in the general election should be, "Can you afford four more years like this? Not complicated. Do you want this much unemployment, this high a gasoline price, this much deficit spending? You have a great president but if you don't want this, you better vote for somebody new."

Steven Sterin thinks he has a better way. As president of the advanced fuels division at Dallas-based chemicals company Celanese, he’s supervising construction of two new plants—one in Texas, the other in China—to make ethanol. But you won’t see any vats fermenting corn here. Celanese makes its ethanol by tearing apart and recombining the hydrocarbons found in plentiful natural gas or coal. ..... The problem isn’t science. It’s Washington. Thanks to the 2007 Renewable Fuel Standard law, gasoline refiners are mandated to blend so much plant-based or renewable ethanol into the gas supply that it prevents Celanese or any other...

The United States can meet President Barack Obama's goal of producing 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, but it better get moving. That's according to Tom Vilsack, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to a 2010 Agriculture Department report, the agency plans for the U.S. to produce 13.4 billion gallons of biofuels from grasses and sugars. The rest would come from oil seeds, crop residues and wood waste. The EPA is exploring other sources, such as animal fats, municipal solid waste and algae. The push for more biofuels comes as other industries, such as commercial power companies,...

Newt Gingrich has been touring Iowa lately, attempting to generate interest in a run for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, and he’s been going the traditional route of defending farm subsidies, especially for ethanol. Gingrich blasted the media for its skeptical approach to ethanol subsidies, especially the Wall Street Journal, saying that “big urban newspapers want to kill it because it’s working,” and then questioned the WSJ’s values. The editors have responded in an unsigned editorial titled “Professor Cornpone,” and they give Gingrich both barrels: Here’s how he put in Des Moines, with that special Gingrich nuance: “The morning that...

Newt Gingrich got himself in a bit of hot water in some conservative circles recently with his support of Ethanol subsidies. It drew the scorn of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, who implied that the former speaker might have more than a passing financial interest in propping up King Corn. On Thursday Newt took to the “letters” pages of the WSJ to fire back. In the interest of fairness, we should allow him to make his case. Second, I am not a lobbyist for ethanol, not for anyone. My support of increased domestic energy production of all forms, including...

With the 2012 presidential election already on presidential aspirants’ front doorstep, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is hiking the campaign trail, stomping the path of ethanol subsidies. Last Tuesday, the former Speaker visited the Renewable Fuels Association summit in Des Moines, touting the praises of ethanol and its progressive impact on the environment. He then tenderized the farm industry saying, “We have had a problem of farm income back to the 1890s and 1880s [and] the fact is that every time the farmers start to do well someone starts to attack them.” A battle between Gingrich and the Wall Street...

Ethanol damages engines and is not a viable alternative to fossil fuels, but farmers and lobbyists don't want you to know that

The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday that cars and light trucks in the 2001 model year and later could safely use a blend of 15 percent ethanol mixed with gasoline, up from the 10 percent standard now in much of the country. The decision means that about 62 percent of all vehicles can now use the fuel. But the practical impact of the announcement on the fuel blend, known as E15, was not clear. An announcement in October that cars in the 2007 model year and later could use the blend has so far had little impact on retailers or...

Corn belongs on the dinner plate, not in the gas tank. America’s food and energy policies are severely twisted. How else can you explain the fact that America refuses to mine its own energy sources, choosing instead to import most of our oil, while arguing that to meet our needs for something to power our cars and trucks, we ought instead to simply use a food staple used the world over?

The last time these columns were lambasted by a presidential candidate in Iowa, he was Democrat Richard Gephardt and the year was 1988. The Missouri populist won the state caucuses in part on the rallying cry that "we've got to stop listening to the editorial writers and the establishment," especially about ethanol and trade. Imagine our amusement to find Republican Newt Gingrich joining such company. The former Speaker blew through Des Moines last Tuesday for the Renewable Fuels Association summit, and his keynote speech to the ethanol lobby was as pious a tribute to the fuel made from corn and...

--snip--Today there is a global food shortage and skyrocketing prices. This has become the underlying factor in the riots in Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt, where up to 56% of a person's income is dedicated to the acquisition of food. These riots are now leading to the upheaval of governments and the very real possibility of the ascendancy of the radical elements into control...

"Two hundred years ago, this was prairie covered with six-foot-high switchgrass. Winnebago Indians lived here, and then white settlers … Now 50 wind turbines that were erected over the winter and the (VeraSun) ethanol plant, have brought new energy to a town that long lived off the ground God created with glaciers, and laid down here."

<p>As we know, massive popular unrest has broken out against autocratic governments in North Africa and the Arab world. Egypt is the biggest story. But to varying degrees, the people have taken to the streets in Algeria, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, and Yemen.</p>

Decades of autocratic government and a lack of free elections are, of course, the main drivers of the political upheaval in Egypt. But did the sinking dollar and skyrocketing food prices trigger the massive unrest now occurring in Egypt — or the greater Arab world for that matter? In addition to Egypt, the people have taken to the streets to varying degrees in Algeria, Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Yemen. Local food riots have even broken out in rural China and other Asian locales. While the mainstream media focus on the political aspects of this turmoil, they are overlooking the impact...