“The corn and livestock industries are linked. As corn goes up, so will the price of meats, and ultimately, that cost is passed on to the consumer.”
The real reason most people are pissed about subsidized ethanol: it competes with subsidized meat and makes it more expensive. Cheap meat has long been the goal of our farm policy, and the farmer is saying ‘screw you’ and looking to other added-value ag opportunities.
People don’t like their ethanol but they love their cheap meat. Subsidy is subsidy. I say get used to it, even if the ethanol subsidy is done away with, technological advances are still going to siphon farm products away to other added-value ag opportunities than meat, or throwing it on a barge and shipping it to China. Farmers are not going to go back to farming 50 years ago no matter how much the luddites want it to return to that.
I’m not sure of your motive but don’t call it “value added” when the govt is subsidizing it. We have been selling grain overseas for a long time. This spike in corn is something else. The govt subsidies - over a dollar a gallon for ethanol - has thrown this way out of balance. Perhaps you are a friend to the farmer who rationalizes the good money of taxpayers going to make farmers rich, maybe not, but you don’t really have a standing here to lecture.