On Sat, 19 Sep 2015 18:40:41 -0500, sms wrote:

On 11/30/2012 3:29 PM, Douglas Johnson wrote:
" wrote:

Ethanol is a big middle-finger to the Arab oil sheiks, and puts the
money in the pockets of good hard-working patriotic American farmers,
so I don't know why people get so hot over it...

How about the starving children, dying in Africa? Is that
a good enough reason? Diversion of crops to ethanol has
tripled the price of grains. That hits everyone from those
struggling in this country who buy corn flakes, to those
hungry children in Africa. Don't forget to factor in that
increased cost in corn flakes, beef, bread, and lives lost.

For once, we are in violent agreement. Corn based ethanol is a
disaster. We
are burning food.

But it's good for Archers Danial Midland and that's what matters. They
give a lot of money to Republicans in Congress to keep the Ethanol scam
and HFCS scams going strong.

Some cut.

The original post is from almost three years ago so I'm not sure who
wrote
what other than the last paragraph.
This is also from some time ago: http://preview.alturl.com/peu58
The short version is 3% of U.S. corn production is used directly for
human consumption.
Food grade corn requires special practices starting at planting.
It has to be isolated from neighboring corn by the use of isolation
rows, for example.
Some inflation adjusted pricing. The first is from the USDA going
back to 1910: http://preview.tinyurl.com/o49y2na Corn was at least
double the price back in the 1910s than it is now. The second he
http://preview.alturl.com/tuyki It goes back to 1981. It was higher
back then, inflation adjusted. There wasn't much in the way of
ethanol requirements back then if my memory is working.
The earliest I remember of ethanol was back in the mid 70s. It
was called gasohol. I think the Nebraska corn board was pushing
is as another outlet for corn production. There are 4,000
uses for corn now.
There isn't much irrigation in Illinois and Iowa, the two
largest corn producers. Drought hits, prices go up, Nebraska
farmers buy new equipment. Mrs. Farmer sees all that shiny stuff
and there is a new house going up, too.
Conventional wisdom among farmers is there is no feed value lost
through ethanol production. The cattle feeders use the distillers
grains to feed their critters.
This http://preview.tinyurl.com/pf398wq is from the Wisconsin
Farmers Union. It cites the United States Department of Agriculture
and compares what farmers receive compared to what consumers spend on
a few items.
Farmers are largely food consumers also nowadays. Farms of my
parents generation had some crops, some livestock, and gardens.
The women raised chickens for eggs and butchering. The runt of the
pig litter was bacon eventually. A steer would be hamburger when needed.
Those days are virtually gone now. The only livestock on many farms now
is the dog.
Consumers are spending a lot of money in restaurants according to
this: http://preview.alturl.com/3rogj



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