The Dexter Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
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Groups unite to refute food vs. fuel myths of anti-ethanol campaign
PUBLISHED: June 5, 2008
LANSING — Several of the nation's leading agricultural organizations banded together this week to say they're fed up with debating myths about ethanol and its exaggerated impact on food prices, and they want the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and others involved in a massive anti-ethanol campaign to quit making ethanol "the scapegoat" for increased food costs when out-of-control prices for crude oil are the bigger culprit.
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"(Their) propaganda is doing nothing short of dividing the agriculture industry in order to capitalize on the public's misconception about food prices," said American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) President Bob Stallman of a multi-million dollar anti-ethanol campaign led by GMA.
"Efforts such as this campaign work against the national policy and goal of less reliance on foreign sources of fuel and only contribute to an environment where the real issues are ignored and little will be solved," said Stallman. "Instead of using ethanol as a scapegoat for increased food prices, we should be having a real discussion about the business, economics and policy issues connected with the world of $130-plus per barrel oil."
Stallman made his comments last Wednesday during a press briefing that also included leaders from the National Association of Wheat Growers, National Corn Growers Association, National Farmers Union, National Sorghum Producers, and the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA).
The group cited several examples in which ethanol has been unfairly blamed for price run-ups on food products not made from the same type of corn used in ethanol production - or corn at all. The situations range from ethanol being blamed for pasta riots in Italy when wheat, not corn, is used to make pasta to theaters jacking up ticket prices for movie-goers because ethanol allegedly has forced them to pay more for popcorn, yet ethanol and theater popcorn are made from completely different types of corn.
"The farm price of a tub of popcorn is less than the cost of the paper tubs they scoop into it," remarked a frustrated NCGA President Ron Litterer.
Part of the problem, the group said, is most consumers don't realize that the majority of corn grown in the United States is field corn, not sweet corn which they are more familiar with as fresh corn on the cob or canned corn. Field corn, which is used for ethanol production, is primarily grown to feed livestock, with a small portion of the crop used for corn syrup and other processed food products. Litterer adds that in nearly every food product, corn remains an inexpensive ingredient. So even with $6 per bushel corn, the amount of corn in a box of corn flakes costs less than a dime, he said.
The group worries, though, that consumers have been brainwashed into believing that retail food prices move up or down solely based on agricultural commodity prices when most often several factors are at play, including costs for labor, packaging and transportation. That's why even with wheat trading lower now at $7 a bushel, consumers can probably still find a loaf of bread today priced the same as it was in March when wheat shot up to $12 a bushel, said David Cleavinger, president of the National Association of Wheat Growers.
"We're extremely disappointed by the lengths to which the Grocery Manufacturers Association and its allies have gone in their efforts to bad mouth corn farmers and ethanol producers," said Litterer. "It really is an attack on all of agriculture because it asserts that farmers are no longer able to do what they've done for centuries — feed the world."
In reality, U.S. corn farmers have produced the four largest corn crops in U.S. history within the past five years, and yields have increased by about three bushels per acre each year, said Litterer.
"It's not that we're taking corn away from other uses. We're producing more corn to meet the newly expanded market demands," he said.
Unfortunately, said Litterer, other countries such as Africa have not kept the same pace for various reasons ranging from limited use of biotechnology to domestic policy issues that interfere with agricultural growth in their country.
National Sorghum Producers CEO Tim Lust pointed out that a little over a year ago some countries and international organizations blamed the United States for overproducing crops and flooding the world market with cheap food to the point where developing nations couldn't compete. Now, these same critics have turned the tide and just 18 months later are accusing the United States of not producing enough food.
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