When Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns spoke at the National Press Club on July 27, the inevitable question about ethanol was asked.

“Corn-based ethanol may help the nation reduce its dependence on foreign oil, but critics say that ethanol costs almost as much as the energy it produces. Isn’t corn-based ethanol a wasteful way to produce energy, and won’t it increase the cost of food?”

Johanns first response was brief and to the point, “No, and it isn’t.”

After the laughter died down, he elaborated on the issue.

“Every year we have some inflation relative to food, 2 percent, 3 percent, somewhere in that vicinity, some years maybe a little bit more, a little bit less. This year with all of this debate raging we anticipate that food prices across the board will be impacted 2 to 4 percent, about average, maybe a little bit higher. Then when you look at that, many articles I read see that and then they go right to the conclusion, it’s because of ethanol, it’s because the price of corn got high and that’s the reason.

“They leave out a whole big piece of the analysis. What’s the big piece of the analysis? The farmer doesn’t get all of that. I’m sure they wish they did. But they get about 20 cents of the retail dollar. Actually the increase in the price of energy to ship that food can have as much or more of a profound impact on the price of that food than the corn you feed to the animal.”

Read the press club transcript here.