Posted on 04/08/2008 12:56:21 PM PDT by Red Badger
DTN News
Ethanol Gets Bum Rap
USDA: Price of Corn Just Small Part of Retail Food Price Jumps
Marcia Zarley Taylor DTN Executive Editor
Bio | Email
Tue Apr 8, 2008 05:46 AM CDT
WASHINGTON (DTN) — True, you’ll be paying higher prices for almost everything at restaurants and the supermarket checkout counter this year. But, while concerned about food price inflation, USDA policymakers and economists place most of the blame outside the farm gate.
“The big culprit in rising food prices is energy costs,” USDA Secretary Ed Schafer told the North American Agricultural Journalists gathered here Monday. “While consumers face huge impacts, agriculture is a factor, but not the driving factor” behind food price inflation.
Schafer assured the group, “I don’t believe we are in a position to take any dramatic steps today” to curb food inflation. He insisted he was not interested in restricting exports or allowing early-release of Conservation Reserve Program acres, although he did not rule out policy changes for 2009. He also dismissed the notion that cutting back on the 15-billion-gallon Renewable Fuel Standard for corn-based ethanol would have much impact.
USDA Chief Economist Joe Glauber agreed grain prices are getting a disproportionate share of the blame. “There are concerns over food prices, but commodities have such a small share of the retail prices” that it’s hard to criticize them for the food price run-up, he said. “Even if the price of wheat went up 80 percent, you’d have only a 7 percent or 8 percent impact on bakery prices.”
Corn prices have more than doubled since late 2007 and are poised to appreciate another 30 percent or 40 percent in 2008, said Ephraim Leibtag, USDA’s food markets economist. But so far, he added, higher corn prices and other raw ingredients have had “a rather minimal impact” on food inflation.
Question...
Has anyone done the math on how many more acres of corn production it would take (assuming good growing conditions) to cover what the latest round of environmental laws requires? Even if the process of actually making ethanol gets more efficient...
Breakthrough In Biofuel Production Process
Science Daily | Apr. 8, 2008 | staff
Posted on Tuesday, April 08, 2008 09:43:55 PM by saganite
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1998765/posts
Of course it does, but farmers don't buy Switchgrass seed...................
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