Talking about…Ethanol, Downers, Korea, Animal welfare, the Pew Commission

"The price of grain is now directly tied to the price of oil. We used to have a grain economy and a fuel economy. But now they're beginning to fuse."
(Source: Washington Post/MSNBC.com, April 30, 2008)
Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, a Washington research group

"He's serious about addressing the issue. There's no position being taken right now."
(Source: Riverside, CA Press-Enterprise, April 30, 2008)
Chris Connelly,Agriculture Department spokesman, speaking a strange language called ‘inside the beltway bureaucratese, the mumbo/jumbo dialect’ while explaining Ag Secretary Ed Schafer’s position on the No Downers issue.
>PS: With the major trade associations finally agreeing that allowing downers to enter the food chain is a really bad idea, Connelly reports “Schafer is mulling a ban as he awaits the results of a federal investigation and audit now being conducted by the Agriculture Department's Office of Inspector General.”
>PPS: It’s no longer a ‘mullable’ issue. Mr. Schafer; it’s an issue of reclaiming public trust.

"The food and feed people are beginning to realize what it means to have subsidies and tax breaks for the ethanol plants. They weren't alert to this particular issue. They now are entering a period of active lobbying against the corn-based ethanol people."
(Source: CNNMoney.com, May 2, 2008)
James Thurber, a professor of political science at American University in Washington, D.C., talking about two industries that got caught with their pants down on the effects of diverting corn to ethanol.
>PS: They’re hitching up their pants and getting down to some serious business.

"With the logic that people should be able to eat cheap beef, the government deserted people's right to health only to stabilize its power. The Grand National Party called the candlelight vigils an anti-American, anti-government, leftist conspiracy, which is an insult to the people and an attack on common sense."
(Source: Yonhap News, Korea, May 4, 2008)
Rep. Cha Young, spokesman for the opposition United Democratic Party, attacking the Korean government’s decision to open their market to U.S. beef.
>PS: About 7,000 people showed up Saturday night for a candlelight vigil at the Cheonggye stream in downtown Seoul to protest the decision.

“Whatever the reasons for foot-dragging may be, they are small potatoes compared to the serious threats animal activists present right now. It's high time that producer-leaders of commodity associations individually and collectively decide to be proactive in ways that yield a strong chance for success.”
(Source: Feedstuffs Foodliunk, April 25, 2008)
Dr. Stanley Curtis, a professor with the University of Illinois and one of the nation's leading authorities on animal welfare, writing about the need for the animal ag industry to get its collective act together.

“Many livestock feeders are losing equity, some are having difficulty obtaining operating financing from lending institutions, and others are simply getting out of the business of feeding livestock.”
(Source: North Platte Bulletin, April 30, 2008)
Keith Olsen, Nebraska Farm Bureau President, talking about the farm crisis caused by soaring feed costs and stagnating product demand.
>PS: He said cattle feeders are losing $200 to $300 per animal, pork producers are losing up to $60 per animal.

Point:
"Bottom line - there's been a very clever marketing disinformation campaign directed at biofuels by those with deep pockets. If you really want to know who the real axe murderer is that's slashing our grocery food budget, look at $4.00 a gallon gasoline; look at $120 a barrel oil."
Rick Tolman, National Corn Growers Association CEO, at last Wednesday's National Press Club telling reporters corn-based ethanol had been the victim of aggressive and well-funded smear tactics by its opponents.
Counterpoint:
"We urge you and your colleagues to continue examining food-to-fuel mandates in the context of national and global priorities. We must quickly transition toward supporting solutions that don’t pit our energy needs against our food needs."
Patrick Boyle, American Meat Institute CEO, in a letter also signed by the National Meat Association and others, urging congress to reconsider the federal decision to fund the ethanol industry.
(Source: Brownfield Network, May 1, 2008)

Point:
"Retreat from biofuels is wrong; it's dangerous, it's a mistake. It won't fill anybody's stomach and won't fill any gas tanks."
Patricia Woertz, ADM chairwoman and CEO, making a passionate defense of the ethanol industry that has been a major contributor to the company’s bottom line.
>PS: ADM saw its financial gas tank filled with a 42% increase in its quarterly profit, to $517 million, amid its shrewd maneuvers in the grain market.
Counterpoint:
"In 2007, ethanol production will replace only 3 percent of U.S. oil imports. The fact is we can't grow enough corn in this country to make a dent in our petroleum dependency."
Richard Bond, Tyson Foods CEO, questioning the wisdom of investing in a form of energy that ‘will never displace oil's role in the economy.’
>PS: Proving the price of chicken feed isn’t exactly chicken feed, anymore, Tyson was clobbered by a $5 million quarterly loss mostly caused by higher feed costs.
PPS: In this food vs. fuel controversy, you can never go wrong if you just ‘Follow the money!’
(Source: Chicago Tribune, May 1, 2008)>

“One of the most serious unintended consequences of industrial food animal production is the growing public health threat of these types of facilities. There is increasing urgency to chart a new course in agriculture, which has been shifting over the last 50 years from family farms to large livestock meat producers.”(Source: Kansas City Star, April 28, 2008))
Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production report, trying to plow under a century’s worth of progress in making agriculture more efficient.
>PS: Sorry, but after reading all the news about food riots and a greater number of the world’s population suffering from the real public health threat - ‘food insecurity,’ a federally-sponsored euphemism for ‘facing imminent starvation,’ I think the report was ill-timed, ill-advised and dead wrong.
>PPS: The Commission would have been better off to issue a report on the new efficiencies needed to produce and transport more food at an even lower cost per unit.