Seizing on last week’s CBO report and a proposal by Growth Energy to phase out and redirect the blenders tax credit for ethanol (VEETC), several long-time opponents of ethanol renewed their call for an end to all tax incentives for the home-grown fuel. In a press conference this morning, representatives from the American Meat Institute (AMI), Environmental Working Group (EWG), …
Book Review – The Economics of Food
It wasn’t too long ago that the ethanol industry experienced the perfect storm…high energy prices, high corn prices and low ethanol prices. Also during this time food prices rose. Why? While the reality was that high energy prices were a major factor (oil was more than $15o per barrel at its peak), ethanol was blamed over and over again as …
ASA: Soybeans Can Provide Food, Fuel & Jobs
The American Soybean Association says soybeans can provide the food this country needs, while also producing an important fuel in the form of biodiesel. And that means more jobs. Southeast Farm Press reports, in comments to the National Research Council’s Committee on Economic and Environmental Impacts of Increasing Biofuels Production, the ASA says biodiesel made from soybean oil can play …
Corn Growers Say Concerns Not About Ethanol
The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) is concerned about the company the meat industry is keeping in an “unholy” anti-ethanol alliance with some environmental groups that also have an anti-meat agenda. The alliance, which kicked off a major campaign last week opposing the proposed increase in the allowable level of ethanol in gasoline to 15 percent, includes the American Meat …
Book Review – Enough
As I write this review, I’m sitting on my deck looking out at dozens of acres of avocado, orange and lemon trees. Yesterday, I helped to plant a vegetable garden – the produce being grown for a local restaurant. The irony is that as I am surrounded by abundance here in America, I’m reading about those in other countries who …
Anti-Ethanol Machine Back in Action
The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and fellow ethanol foes have been fairly quiet since food prices began moderating last year, but the coalition has gotten back into action this past week with a new campaign opposing E15. A scathing editorial in the Washington Times Monday followed directly on the heels of a full-page ad in “The Hill” last week sponsored …
UK Report on Food Crisis Vindicates Ethanol
A new report commissioned by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has concluded that drought and high oil prices, not biofuels, were behind the so-called food crisis of 2007/2008. “Available evidence suggests that biofuels had a relatively small contribution to the 2008 spike in agricultural commodity prices,” the report noted. “Studies which have found a large …
ACE Responds to Ethanol Attack Ad
The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) is calling claims made by an advertising campaign against ethanol by a coalition food and oil company groups “half-baked.” “If the products sold to consumers by Big Food are as half-baked as their ethanol claims, we have a life-threatening food safety crisis in America,” stated Brian Jennings, Executive Vice President of ACE. “Never before …
Researchers: Biofuels Can Be Beneficial
A group of researchers, many from Princeton University, say that biofuels can solve many of the problems related to non-renewable fossil fuels… without creating more problems of their own. This article from Princeton says the key is making the green fuels from sustainable sources: “The world needs to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, but recent research findings have thrown …
Russia Calls for More Regulation In Global Ag Exports
After becoming one of the top three wheat exporters in 2008, Russia is now determined to play a pivotal role in the flow of worldwide agriculture markets. Russian Federation’s President Dmitry Medvedev has proposed closer coordination between global grain exporters and said, “excessive protectionism had encouraged speculation in global grain markets,” during the World Grain Forum which took place over …