Posted on 03/18/2007 10:46:42 PM PDT by thackney
Paul Hitch has spent his entire life raising cattle and hogs on a stretch of the Oklahoma panhandle he says is "flat as a billiard table." His great-grandfather started the ranch in 1884, before Oklahoma was a state, and now Hitch, 63, is preparing to pass the family business on to his two sons.
But he worries that they'll face mounting pressures in the industry, particularly because of the soaring price for corn, which the business depends on to feed the livestock. In the past year, corn prices have doubled as demand from ethanol producers has surged.
"This ethanol binge is insane," says Hitch, who's president-elect of the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn. (NCBA). "This talk about energy independence and wrapping yourself in the flag and singing God Bless America—all that's going to come at a severe cost to another part of the economy."
The ethanol movement is sprouting a vocal crop of critics. While politicians including President George W. Bush and farmers across the Midwest hope that the U.S. can win its energy independence by turning corn into fuel, Hitch and an unlikely assortment of allies are raising their voices in opposition. The effort is uniting ranchers and environmentalists, hog farmers and hippies, solar-power idealists and free-market pragmatists (see BW Online, 02/2/07, " Ethanol: Too Much Hype—and Corn").
They have different reasons for opposing ethanol. But their common contentions are that the focus on corn-based ethanol has been too hasty, and the government's active involvement—through subsidies for ethanol refiners and high tariffs to keep out alternatives like ethanol made from sugar—is likely to lead to chaos in other sectors of the economy.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
Don't we pay farmers NOT to grow things? Why not try to get them to plant more.
Already has. The Grocery Sector.......Margarine, Corn Oil, Milk, Pork, Beef, Chicken, Eggs... anything remotely involved with corn is already up and getting higher.............
EXACTLY, and because there are so many ethanol plants going on line there is a glut of it and the cost in many areas has dropped to $60 ton. The whole thing balances out. Corn way up ... DGs way down. DGs are so concentrated with proteins, vitamins an minerals it must be mixed with normal rations and increases the productivity of beef cattle as much as ten percent. All this BS about cost of food going up because of ethanol production is just that... so much BS.
You're rigth. With additional corn production due to the higher prices, the actual cost for feed should eventually drop. It's the changeover period that will be rough.
We have replaced one source of energy we won't allow our producers to drill for in our own country with another, that is driving the cost of beef, chicken..heck even cheese higher. This is moronic. Count me out on the ethanol bandwagon.
I've been against ethanol for quite some time. First off, butanol is a much better fuel, much closer in potential energy to gasoline. Secondly, it's easier to get from a wider selection of sources. And most importantly (IMHO), you're not setting up a competition between foodstuffs and energy sources.
Mark
This is a problem?
From the perch of his $180,000 six-row combine, churning through cornfields that stretch as far as the eye can see, John Phipps has a rare view of American farm policy.
Today, he calls himself an "industrial farmer" who uses computers, technology and science to get the most out of the 1,800 acres of corn and soybeans he plants in an area of Illinois where the weather and soil are ideal for farming. The strategy has paid off with bigger and better yields.
Yet to Congress and federal agricultural officials, Phipps and his wife, Jan, are struggling family farmers. Last year, the government sent the Phippses a check for $120,000. Thousands of similar checks arrived throughout the Corn Belt, even as many farmers had bumper crops.
Federal Subsidies Turn Farms Into Big Business
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/20/AR2006122001591_pf.html
ADM has signaled its determination to maintain corn -- for which it has billions of dollars in assets geared toward buying, moving, storing, and processing in place -- as the main ethanol feedstock.
How cash and corporate pressure pushed ethanol to the fore.......
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/12/06/ADM/index.html
where do you get that BS?
the liquid-fuel energy gain is more that TEN-TO-ONE.
look at the top-right graph on page two, from Argonne National lab
http://www.ncga.com/public_policy/PDF/03_28_05ArgonneNatlLabEthanolStudy.pdf
the rest can be home-developed energy from the US
if you don't like subsidies, you should like the
current, higher, crop prices.
subsidies are getting priced-out
anything is better than sending money
to ragheads
It is inevitable that US ag subsidies will have to fall because of the related WTO impasse.
In this case, the ethanol subsidies have the potential to replace ag subsidies. And while ethanol subsidies benefit only corn producers, there are stories in the media of cotton producers planning to convert part of their cotton acreage to corn to take advantage of the higher demand. Soybean and rice producers will shift also.
A feller told me the ground is so flat out there,
that when you looked way out in front of you,
all you could see was the back of your own head.
"someone else will turn the corn into ethanol."
Let them burn that lousy fuel then.
Eliminate all the subsidies ons it and we won't have to put up with it.
nothing lousy about ethanol.
people building high compression engines,
love the stuff.
find some other 105 octane, at a pump.
ethanol, excellent fuel.
Do you think it is possible that ethanol is produced to insure that food is limited for the population?
In 2006 we imported 3.5 Billion liters (925 Million Gallons) of ethanol from Brazil. They do more than want to; they export more to us than anywhere else.
Yup. When that steak at the steak house starts costing $150.00 for 8 oz NY Strip, then folks are going to whine.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.