DOWN with biofuels

[M.T. Pockets]

I live 13 miles from one of the largest ethanol plants in the U.S. The largest ethonal plant contractor has their HQ 15 miles in the other direction and ethanol is big medicine here. Very big.

Ethanol has definitely impacted the price of grain. Corn is $3.66 per bushell today compared to an average price of about $1.85 a couple years ago. More acres are going into corn production and less acres of other crops (soybeans, wheat, alfalfa...) are being put in, so the price for those commodities is increasing also.

I can't to argue how much it costs to produce a gallon of ethanol, or how much pollution is caused by producing it compared to fossil fuels, because I don't know. I know each has it's drawbacks, as does coal and nuclear.

Here are some observations from living in the middle of the ethanol belt. Land prices are going up drastically and farming is becoming more and more intense. Remember those CRP fields on marginal cropland that you like to hunt ? They're going to get plowed up to plant more corn. Same with pasture land and other marginal land. Hunting land will decline and so will wildlife populations. More sloughs will be drained.

Food prices will definitely go up. I agree that commodity prices should have been higher for the last 20 some years. I grew up on a farm and my family has made a living on the same farm for over 100 years. But food consumers have to realize they're getting took, commodity prices were this high (even higher) during the 1970's and cheerios were a whole lot cheaper then than today. There is about 5 cents of oats in a box of cheerios. Meat prices will get higher due to increased feed costs, and more land being used for pastures to raise cattle will get plowed up and corn will be planted on it. Fewer calves = higher prices.

Ethanol consumers are also getting took. I don't trust Archer Daniels Midland or Cargill any more than I trust the oil companies. They're in business to make money and they're not going to base the price of their ethanol according to the price of gasoline. E85 follows the gas prices and here it is usually 40 cents lower. The overall cost is about the same since it doesn't give the mileage that gasoline does.

I'd like to see us less dependent on foreign oil (any oil) as much as anybody, and I do support the higher commodity prices for our farmers (this also means less gov't subsidies in price supports). But let's not get our hopes up that Ethanol is going to solve all of our fuel problems and get the cost down to $1.50 a gallon.