Markets Nervous: Will U.S. Plant Enough Corn? »
Posted by: Neophile 5 months, 1 week agoWith food prices racing higher around the world, and strong demand for corn from food companies, livestock producers and ethanol makers, U.S. corn production is considered a critical component of keeping people fed.
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DropkickaLib5 months, 1 week ago
No more biofuel. The increased demand for corn on the world market due to countries like China which now have more cash than ever before makes biofuel an unsustainable drain on the food supply. I believe that the European Union has taken measures to limit the amount of corn that can be used for biofuel and we need to do the same. This industry is economically inefficient given the amount of energy needed to produce biofuel and the inflationary impact on food prices.
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saintetienne5 months, 1 week ago
"But it makes lots of money for the BIG-boy agribusiness folks"
God forbid anybody should make any MONEY at anything....
crackpot, just because YOU'VE failed at every attempt to make money.... or provide a living for yourself.... or wean yourself off government cheese.... doesn't mean everyone else has to live like you. Thank god everyone is different, I say. Thank god there is variety that allows for losers (quackpot) and winners (EVERYone else) to co-exist. It's that kind of diversity that makes the world go 'round.
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quackpot5 months, 1 week ago
This is a very new industry which is trying to discover the best way of producing ethanol while at the same time trying to deal with the profit motive of those who produce corn (as opposed to cellulose).
One should be careful about condemning ethanol production in general when the problem might be with those that prematurely promote an aggressive the single approach of using corn as the best source.
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jimdoze5 months, 1 week ago
Here's a novel idea... We probably should let the markets figure it out... hmmmm
In the meantime, nuclear fission power is the one clear way to provide industrial quantities of energy which would take pressure off of energy supplies (costs) while, at the same time, taking pressure off of food supplies and CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it would help enormously from an international balance of payments standpoint.
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pc255 months, 1 week ago
http://www.spectator.org/util/print.asp?art_id=...
Biofuels Meltdown
FTA
"From the very beginning, there was never any indication that turning corn into ethanol was improving our energy independence......From the beginning, the entire biofuels effort has been built on flimsy projections and dubious accounting that were seized upon by politicians eager to demonstrate they were "doing something" about energy
T]he entire U.S. corn crop would supply only 3.7 percent of our auto and truck transport demands. Using the entire 300 million acres of U.S. cropland for corn-based ethanol production would meet about 15 percent of demand....And the effects on land and agriculture would be devastating.
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pc255 months, 1 week ago
"More than 25 percent of American corn is now being refined into ethanol. This has diverted corn from other uses, mainly animal feed. As a result, milk prices jumped 33 percent in 2007. Yet all this effort is replacing less than 2 percent of our oil consumption."
And another bit of hypocrisy
IN AN ERA WHEN "Save the Rainforests" is an international crusade, tropical rainforests from Brazil to Malaysia are now being cleared for palm oil plantations sending "biodiesel" fuels to Europe and America. Three years ago, Friends of the Earth discovered that the clearing was threatening the last refuge of the orangutan. Trumpeting an "oil-for-apes scandal.........
Screw the orangutan because it's good for the environment
Al Gore said so........right??
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injest5 months, 1 week ago
Is it required that corn is used to make "bio-fuels"?
I was under the impression that "bio-fuels" can be made from any plant.
Anyone want to predict how long it will be before someone claims "the best bio-fuels are made from Hemp man"
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quackpot5 months, 1 week ago
no, it was agribusiness which lobbied HARD on both the dem and repub side of the asile.
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injest5 months, 1 week ago
"Who were those group of idiots that jumped at the idea of using ethanol over oil?"
The same ones that forced MTBE to be put into gas in Ca.
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joeblowe5 months, 1 week ago
More biofuel. Just NOT from food stock. Oh yeah: STOP BREEDING LIKE RABBITS. Do you suppose a shortage of food crops has anything to do with a climbing world population?
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Wolfie20075 months, 1 week ago
joe
No, the worlds population can be fed easily a present crop levels. What can't be done is use food for fuel and feed the world, get it? Using food as fuel is immoral and is it hurting the poor, these are the very people who the liberals say they want to help but these are the people who always get hurt by liberal ideas. Yeah, it was liberals who started this whole glow bull warming scam not agribusiness.
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joeblowe5 months, 1 week ago
It might be possible to feed the world at current crop levels, but the notion that taking a part of the crop to make biofuels will cause starvation somewhere makes me think the situation is JUST a little too close to the breaking point. I still maintain: too many people. As for the morality of using food for fuel, that's a whole different can of worms. Are you suggesting that a farmer shouldn't be allowed to raise whatever crop he wishes, and sell it to whoever will pay the best price? Regardless of what the buyer wants to DO with it? I suggest that you NOT try floating that idea in front of any farmers; you won't make any friends. Although as I noted, I do personally favor using biomass OTHER than food stock to make biofuel.
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Codi69345 months, 1 week ago
Last I checked food prices went up for everybody in all classes. This might of worked 30-40 years ago, but not now. We need to two prong plan, 1) drill on our own soil 2) more research on alternate sources. But this will take a decade or two. Too many products are made from oil, not just gasoline. We will not change overnight.
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Codi69345 months, 1 week ago
Last I checked food prices went up for everybody in all classes. This might of worked 30-40 years ago, but not now. We need to two prong plan, 1) drill on our own soil 2) more research on alternate sources. But this will take a decade or two. Too much products are made from oil, not just gasoline. We will not change overnight.
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canadianrancher575 months, 1 week ago
I think that any awards for stupidity in regards to bio-fuel can be shared by all politicians in gereral. Consumers complained about high oil prices and since it is a limited resource bio-fuels were supposed to save us a buck, and we all know that politicians will say or do anything to keep their jobs.
As for the farmers all getting rich because of this many of the people who write these articals forget to look at the input costs of producing a crop, machinery prices are going up by 17% this year and fertilizer is almost double, seed costs are related to grain prices so they are up as well and here's the one that scares me the most, we have a tractor that holds 120 gallons of fuel and it will cost over 400 dollars to fill it and that gets me 12 hours worth of work, getting rich I think not.
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getreal15 months, 1 week ago
It makes more sense for the US to start their own thing again. when the government says don't grow, maybe we should anyway and make our own gas, grow our own food. My family kinda gets tired of one basic slim meal a day. Where do any of those jerks get off at telling any one in America what to do to make an honest living. They need to quit jerking the American people around. We are already wise to the fact that the people's vote is nothing more than a census count.
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