There are a couple of diverse (they sell variety) vegetable farms near me. They sell direct to the public ad I know they aren’t being subsidized.
Memo to Michele B........
Memo to Michele B........
Solar, wind, ethanol, etc. Let them rise or fall in a truly free market. The most effective energy solutions for particular applications will be found without the heavy hand of government.
We are actually exporting ethanol. Those importers realize they’re also affecting their imports of corn, wheat etc...STUPID!!!
Pawlenty on ethanol program tax credits (subsidies) “we simply can’t afford them,”. So, we can afford the other ones?
When the gasohol governor marches into Iowa and says that ethanol’s subsidy days are numbered because “we simply can’t afford them,”
Lets not forget that T-paw rammed this crap down our gas tanks in Minnesota and upped it to 20%!
I am not willing to risk failure of my car.
Though alot of the claims on this board about ethanol are overblown, I still am not a fan of ethanol as the added-value ag solution for farmers. We have locked ourselves into a paradigm that in my opinion amounts to putting our eggs into one added-value basket.
There are technologies, in their infancy but being developed, that extract other products from farm products, not only corn, but other grains. Oil, protein, pharmaceuticals, neutraceuticals, things that are not tied to the fuel market, have high value and diversify both the end product market but also the crops a farmer can grow profitably. Not all land is suited best for corn.
The model we need to follow is the reverse of what we have with ethanol. We need to extract all but the carbohydrates up front, then either ferment those to whatever is most profitable, or sell them to whatever industry can use them in their process. The result would be a far more efficient, valuable process, one that is also free market without subsidies or mandates.
We need to do this now. The ethanol industry has become enough of a force that it now has a pull on prices, and I’m afraid that will risk stomping out other viable technologies if ethanol makes corn too expensive because of high fuel prices. Worse, I’m worried about a bust if oil crashes.
Nor do I want to go back to shipping it overseas on a barge, or going back to the cheap meat paradigm that our original farm policy is structured for, and which is the ulterior motive of many on this board when they rail against ethanol. Subsidy is subsidy. Let’s give the farmer true freedom to farm by getting rid of all of it.
Courage? you have to be kidding. TPaw is a weak man. Courage would be standing in Iowa stating "Ethanol subsidies and the mandates for ethanol should immediately end." Ethanol is evil and a cancer on Capitalism.
I have spoken to IOWANS who have enough common sense to recognize that government subsidies for ethanol just aren’t right!
I’m disappointed this article doesn’t mention the Hundreds of Billion dollars spent to subsidize Big Oil! Those subsidies should be eliminated as well.
If someone knows the cost in real dollars to provide a U.S. Millitary escort thru foreign seas for oil tankers headed to the U.S., I hope they will post it. I know it’s huge,, just don’t have the accurate figure.