Analysts with a major agricultural financial institution say alternative fuels are just one of the many factors causing higher food prices.
Karol Aure-Flynn, executive director of the Rabobank Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory department, says “food versus fuel” is basically a misleading sound bite. “The fallacy of the headline is that there is a direct competition between the two; that it’s either or. The reality is that strong global economic growth has changed the demand equation for U.S. commodities,” he said in a recent Rabobank podcast. “The depreciation of the U.S. dollar, soaring energy costs and changing trade policies are also contributing to the cost of commodities, which in turn is raising the cost of food — it’s not just fuel, it’s a combination of all of these factors.”
Aure-Flynn also notes that while prices at the farm level have increased this year, they have been outpaced by production costs for farmers.
“Farmers’ profitability doesn’t change retail prices. And farmers’ profitability isn’t guaranteed by high grain prices. The same factors that are lifting grain prices are lifting production costs,” said Aure-Flynn. “So, yes, the farm price index is at 162 percent of what it was 1990-1992, but at the same time the price index measuring what farmers pay — for services, farm wages — is 189 percent of base.”
Rabobank is a global financial services leader providing institutional and retail banking and agricultural finance solutions in key markets around the world.
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While Congress debates whether America should drill for more oil along the coasts of the country, a more valuable, greener source of energy could be offshore.
The CEO of Houston, Texas-based Nova Biosource Fuels, which has biodiesel refineries in Iowa, Mississippi and Illinois, Kenneth Hern say the key to his company’s success has been expanding its range of feedstocks to cheaper sources. 
Construction on what is expected to be the nation’s first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant in southeast Georgia is making good progress, according to plant officials.
In addition to using woody biomass as a feedstock, they are experimenting with energy crops that can be grown in the region. “We have test plots we have established with Ceres on our Soperton site,” he said. “We intend for the site to be a showcase for some of the technologies we see in the future feeding this industry.”
The Founding Conference of the 
In this edition of “Fill Up, Feel Good,” EPIC executive director Toni Nuernberg talks about how the RFS is helping to keep gasoline prices lower than they would be otherwise and ethanol production continues to help America become more energy independent. The EPA’s decision also allows EPIC to continue with its mission of consumer education about ethanol.
A University of Florida professor has been recognized with the highest honor the Florida State Horticultural Society bestows for his work that includes research to get more oil from plants to produce biodiesel.
General Wesley Clark, the former Supreme Allied Commander of military forces in Europe and former presidential candidate, will be leading the opening day’s session at the HUSUM WindEnergy trade show and congress in Husum, Germany Sept. 9-13, 2008.