Two solutions: (1) suspend ethanol mandates for a few months, let the corn go into feed rather than ethanol, and (2) any acreage we’re paying farmers NOT to grow on, tell them to grow stuff this year
Corn used for ethanol is also used for feed. Were the government to mandate that corn be used only for feed, it would be requiring that livestock feeding become dramatically less efficient.
That's right. Let's tell them to grow something. What should we tell them to grow? How do we make them do so? What if they ignore our demands?
Bravo! Off with their heads.
The corn market in Idaho has spoken. The animal feeding operations were willing to pay more for the corn to make food (feed livestock) than the market price of ethanol would support. Two ethanol plants have been idled because they aren't economically viable.
...do not damage the oil and the wine!"
I'm no Bible expert, but, removing feedstocks from the biodiesel/ethanol loop would quite literally damage the "oil" and "wine"...
First of all the acreage that isn’t being farmed is marginal land, that is why it is in the CRP program in the first place and second, who are you going to get to farm them? Less than 5% of farmers are under 35 and the majority of them are retirement age with no-one to take their place.