States are requiring that producers of gasoline include “biofuels” in their product mix—fuels like ethanol, made from corn or other food crops. A new report from North Carolina’s John Locke Foundation says those rules are costing consumers by raising food prices. And it calls out the states that demand the most biofuels (one of them is North Carolina). Writes Michael Bruce:
“The market distortions from these mandates and incentives artificially constrain food supplies by reallocating edible crops—especially such staples as corn, wheat, and soybeans — to power civilian and government vehicles. Nearly half of the soybeans (46 percent) and corn (45 percent) produced in the United States are used for biofuels.”
The study grades all the states on the extent of their interference to encourage biofuels. Ohio and Utah come off best. North Carolina receives a D- grade for its eleven separate rules that pressure companies to use biofuels.
This article by Michael Bruce is off by over a factor of 2. If we have two acres of corn being shipped to an ethanol facility, we still have over 1 acre of feeding value for livestock. Today, the ethanol industry is turning to fiber separation technology which enable these ethanol facilities to produce both a high fiber feed for cattle and a high protein feed for hog and poultry. If the ethanol industry reduced production, livestock farmers would be buying more corn.
Instead of looking at how much corn is shipped to make ethanol, maybe the better question to ask is how much corn is displaced to make ethanol.
Thanks for an interesting comment, Mr. Vander Griend, although I don’t fully understand it. Do you have a more extensive source that I could have a look at?
Outrageous. It’s the Greens who are driving this monstrous boondoggle, converting America’s farmlands and grasslands into an inefficient “energy” monoculture. It’s the Greens who are driving up food prices in the U.S. and causing malnutrition and starvation in the Third World. It’s the Greens who are driving the massive loss of grasslands and grassland birds — the most rapidly decreasing group of birds. It is the Greens who are destroying native pollinators, bees, butterflies, and other insects. Including the vanishing Monarch butterflies. Sickening.
If we go back in time some 75 years, most cattle were grass fed. You can say cattle, being ruminant animals, are the best biomass digesters out there. As corn became readily available, cattle were being overfed starch. As the ethanol industry came along and created both ethanol and distiller’s dried grain (DDG’s), cattle were somewhat overfed protein.
Today, many ethanol facilities are switching to fiber separation technology, which removes fiber in front of the ethanol process. This allows the stillage from fermentation to produce high-protein feed, mostly for hog and poultry. The fiber is still going to the cattle industry, but the Hi-Pro (50% protein) is going to hog and poultry which is, pound for pound, equal to soybean meal. So, while 40 percent of corn production is being shipped to ethanol facilities, ethanol production is only displacing at most 15 to 20 percent of corn. We are also seeing in high corn yield areas that removing some corn stover (leftover corn stalks, and cobs) is good, and that, too, is going to cattle as feed.
Another way to look at this is that we can ship two acres of corn to an ethanol facility, but we still have over one acre of feeding products. If we make less ethanol, livestock farmers will have to buy more corn.