Ethanol production raises price of corn

That ought to please many environmentalists who want to see a reduction in meat consumption. Raising the price of meat production will take care of that.

 

The best thing about this: maybe U.S. food and drink companies will be allowed to use real sugar again instead of (blah) high fructose corn syrup.

 

The feed-lot system of fattening animals on corn was invented after WW II as a price-support system for corn. The government wanted to raise corn prices for the benefit of farmers. Their options were to buy corn and give it away or throw it away, give the farmers money flat out, or create a new market for corn. The feed-lot system accomplished the latter. As a part of this plan, the government and the meat industry went on a large-scale propaganda campaign to convince Americans to eat more meat, by spreading the lie that a high-meat diet was healthy. They were successful in part because meat tastes good to most people (I find it repulsive, but I'm in the minority) and because in the post-war prosperity Americans had more money to spend on food.

Ethanol is very popular with farmers because it is another market for corn, which will help boost its price yet again if it is adopted on a large-enough scale. Any diversion of farm land from food production to fuel production will push the price of food up, but I think fossil fuels are more detrimental for their lack of sustainability.

 

Not Unexpected

Corn for Ethanol is just stupid.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Nov 14 2006, 01:33 PM) [snapback]348776[/snapback]</div>

Not to mention the government looking for a way to use all of the excess nitrogen after WWII.

It has now become fertilizer for agriculture including ethanol corn.

And guess what is used to make nitgrogen. Yep, crude oil.

I would have to guess we haven't made any headway in trying to break our oil addiction.

Tom

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(FarmGeek @ Nov 14 2006, 02:29 PM) [snapback]348836[/snapback]</div>

I was wrong on the Nitrogen fertilizer production. Natural Gas is used in the production of nitrogen fertilizer.

 

The amount of fossil fuel that goes into corn production is certainly an issue. Fuel for the tractors and the combines, nitrogen for the fertilizer, and corn is a nitrogen-hungry crop. Unfortunately, the web of pork-barrel subsidies for the oil industry and for corn production make a clear calculation difficult.

Wind and solar are definitely better solutions. We should save the ethanol for applications where liquid fuel is really necessary. But such distributed energy sources are nearly impossible to monopolize, and so are difficult for a corrupt government to support.

 

Isn't it also true that corn, on its own, is not readily digested by humans? I mean, certain, ummmmm...empirical evidence does seem to suggest this...

 

Soon we will be fighting with cows to drive our cars. Corn makes great fuel. It makes the fuel system cost more, it gets terrible mileage and we can grow enough corn to supply the potential domestic market. This sounds like a great plan.

How 'bout more small hybrid cars and turbo-diesels, too. We already have the infrastructure. I hear that in California that there are people in the Capital are upset about the tax credits for hybrids like the Prius. These are being reduced and cancelled because they hurt the tax revenue. These programs to support new and existing technology are really lame. I can not even get a sticker to drive in those car pool lanes with my Prius becase they ran out. I have sent my 8 bucks in for the chance to get one of the 10k stickers to be issued after Jan 1, 2007. Fat chance. The tax credits are gone from federal sources because they have given out too many. I wish the politicans that want to screw us could be paid off and sent on vacation and people hired that will do useful work. I try like hell to be a good citizen and what for. Everything I do is lost to jerks like our state and federal politicians. I wish we could put them in jail faster and I wish there were qualifications for office other than the money in the political parties. If you are qualified and don't have enough money then you will never get elected. And the conditions of our highways and sewers and other utilities are what we get stuck with. And now they are going to start pushing E85. When you get screwed like this, should one not receive at least some flowers and a dinner.

 

There has been a study about using the enzymes found in termites stomachs to breakdown vegetable and woody fibers into simple sugars, then this is used to ferment into alcohol.

If this is ever done we could then switch to a fast growing plant with low nutrient requirements such as switchgrass. Imagine a recycling center that you take your bagged leaves too using this to produce automotive fuel.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Nov 15 2006, 01:38 PM) [snapback]349599[/snapback]</div>

It isn't well digested by cattle either. All the drugs and antibiotics given to them is for the bloating and upset stomachs.

 

If you're going to eat beef, you'd do everyone a favor if you found some local supplier of grass-fed beef and bought that. Grass-fed beef requires vastly less fossil fuel to produce, it's a whole lot nicer to the cattle, it's a much more healthful product (leaner, better mix of fats), and its much tastier than grain-finished beef. Slate magazine recently ran an article rating beef from several gourmet suppliers, and meat from grass-fed beef was rated superior to any of the others. I bought a side of beef from a local producer, put in my freezer, and I'm never going back to grocery store corn-fed beef.

 

Corn is pretty bad for biofuel production when compared to stuff like sugar cane.

Here are a couple great books on the subject.

Biofuels for Transportation - World Watch Institute

Specific chapters in State of the World 2006 - special focus China and India

Chapter 4: Cultivating Renewable Alternatives to Oil

Chapter 2: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry


In those articles they state that biofuel production if done in the typical way (i.e. the way we are already starting to do it) is not sustainable and can lead us to an equivilent disaster we have put ourselves in with fossil fuels. We can look to the failures and sucesses of Brazil for answers. For biofuel production to work on a massive scale we would have to reduce our meat consumption and change our famring practices as well as our subsidy programs and put the crop production in the hands of smaller farmers. This would reduce the rate of destruction to native landscapes to build more farms, reduce water consumption, strengthen rual communities and reduce urban immigration and reduce the spread of inequality which always happens with corporate farming.

 

Here's a little more to think about - who is hurt by Corn Price Increases?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2601896_pf.html

A Culinary and Cultural Staple in Crisis
Mexico Grapples With Soaring Prices for Corn -- and Tortillas

By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, January 27, 2007; A01

NEZAHUALCOYOTL, Mexico -- Thick, doughy tortillas roll hot off the conveyor belt all day at Aurora Rosales's little shop in this congested city built on a dry lake bed east of Mexico City.

Using cooking techniques that date to the Mayan empire, Rosales has never altered her recipe. Nor did her father, grandfather or great-grandfather.

On good days, the neighbors line up for her tortillas.

But these are not good days, and sometimes hours pass without any customers.

Mexico is in the grip of the worst tortilla crisis in its modern history. Dramatically rising international corn prices, spurred by demand for the grain-based fuel ethanol, have led to expensive tortillas. That, in turn, has led to lower sales for vendors such as Rosales and angry protests by consumers.

.....

In another place, a rise in the cost of a single food product might not set off a tidal wave of discontent. But Mexico is different.

"When you talk about Mexico, when you talk about culture and societal roots, when you talk about the economy, you talk about the tortilla," said Lorenzo Mejía, president of a tortilla makers trade group. "Everything revolves around the tortilla."

The ancient Mayans believed they were created by gods who mixed their blood with ground corn. They called themselves "Children of the Corn," a phrase Mexicans still sometimes use to describe themselves.

Poor Mexicans get more than 40 percent of their protein from tortillas, according to Amanda Gálvez, a nutrition expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

.....

The tortilla-making process, Gálvez said, releases antioxidants and niacin, which allows them to be absorbed by the body, and the membranes on each corn kernel provide important dietary fiber. As a result of eating tortillas, Mexican children have a very low incidence of rickets, a bone disease caused by calcium deficiency that is common in developing countries.

"It is absolutely crucial for our population to keep eating tortillas," Gálvez said.

Gálvez said she believes the price increase is already steering Mexicans toward less nutritious foods. The typical Mexican family of four consumes about one kilo -- 2.2 pounds -- of tortillas each day. In some areas of Mexico, the price per kilo has risen from 63 cents a year ago to between $1.36 and $1.81 earlier this month.

With a minimum wage of $4.60 a day, Mexican families with one wage earner have been faced in recent months with the choice of having to spend as much as a third of their income on tortillas -- or eating less or switching to cheaper alternatives.

.....

There is almost universal consensus in Mexico that higher demand for ethanol is at the root of price increases for corn and tortillas.

 

Boy, maybe if we didn't hand out such lavish subsidies for corn growers mexicans could afford to grow their own and actually make a profit.

Ohh wait, nevermind. Monsanto will literally own all their corn here shortly as more and more of their genetically modified corn infects local varieties......