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Stanley, WI |
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Ethanol News |
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Support Corn Ethanol
A recent article in the Opinions section of the Leader-Telegram is long in demagogy and short on facts regarding the benefits of corn ethanol.
- The article presupposes that making ethanol from corn has increased the price of food. However, the USDA reported food price increase last year was less than the past five year average.
- The production of ethanol extracts only the starch from corn and returns one third of the corn as a co-product called distillers’ grain. This grain is feed to cattle and poultry, moreover, it is more nutritious than corn with higher protein content.
- Without some 13.3 billion gallons of ethanol in the motor fuel supply chain, the cost of gasoline would be about an additional $1.09 cents a gallon as cited by a collaborative UW-Madison and Iowa State Universities study. That would be about a 33% increase in gasoline prices. This pales the 4% percent increase food last year. Accordingly, ethanol production gives us both food for animals and fuel for our cars and cleaner air.
- No reasonable advocate for American ethanol will tell you that using ethanol has no impact on food prices. But to suggest that that ethanol is driving factor behind the rise in food prices is disingenuous and simply not true.
- Improved farming practices and seed technology advances are responsible for the dramatic increases in corn yields over the past four decades; current yields average 145 bushels per acre whereas in 1980 the yields were only 89.8 bushels per acre.
- Just what is driving food prices higher today? Every step of the food supply chain is reliant on petroleum products – from the use of diesel fuel in farm machinery, to the use of natural gas in food processing plants, to the use of plastics in food packaging, to the use of gasoline in diesel fuel to transport food to the grocery store or restaurant. The correlation coefficient between global food price and global prices since 2000 has been 0.92, which indicates a near – perfect relationship (1.0 is a perfect correlation). The Department of energy cites that the average product in the grocery store come from over 1000 miles. This to satisfy consumer demand for same type of products the year- around.
Submitted by Bob Sather
Co-Founder of the Ethanol Plant in Stanley, WI and
Director of Governmental Relations
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