A senior economist with the nation’s largest general farm organization says the benefits of ethanol outweigh the costs.

During the Association of Equipment Manufacturers AgExecutive forum in St. Louis last week, American Farm Bureau senior economist Terry Francl said that the consumer is seeing a benefit from ethanol.

“The bottom line on the ethanol side is that although it has driven up the cost of things such as feed and food to a certain extent, for every extra dollar that consumers spend for food, they have reduced gasoline costs approximately $2. So it’s a win-win situation for consumers, and for that matter, taxpayers,” Francl said.

The economist says people involved in agriculture and ethanol need to work harder to try and get this message out in the media and to the general public. “It’s not something that is easy because there are a lot of anti-ethanol people that provide a lot of misinformation but we just have to be vigilant and try and address those issues when they come up.”

While the American Farm Bureau is a general farm organization with equal representation from both the crop and livestock sectors, they have continued to support the development of ethanol and biodiesel because of the benefits they offer to the farm sector in general. Francl also points out that the farm equipment sector plays a vital role in helping to increase productivity so that producers can supply both food and fuel for the world.

Lots of good stuff in their presentations, which you can listen to here:
[audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/AEM/aem-forum-08-francl.MP3]