CORN PRODUCTION FACTS VS. MSM IGNORANCE...

A commentator referenced an article on Bloomberg.com entitled "Ethanol Fantasy Fuels a Food-Price Nightmare: by John Barry" and I just can't let it go unanswered.

First of all, Bloomberg knows as much as about the facts of agricultural commodity production as the Mayor of New York knows about our 2nd Amendment Rights.

The article is essentially another one of those hand-wringing declarations that the world is running out of food and the poor are going to starve because of the greedy American farmers, but it is extremely light on the facts of the situation.

Here they are:

(with accreditation to Gary Truitt of the Brownfield Network and the National Corn Growers Assoc., courtesy of the May 7th edition of FARM WORLD)

FACT #1: Higher corn prices are not the main reason for higher food prices as only 25 of the price hike can be attributed to increased corn commodity prices.

FACT #2: Ethanol does NOT take food away from hungry people, where-ever they are located.

FACT #3: Ethanol production does NOT cause environmental damage.

FACT #4: Out of every dollar the American consumer spends on food, 38 cents of it represents the labor cost in preparing that product. Packaging, transportation, energy, advertising and profits account for 24 cents of the consumer food dollar. ONLY 19 cents of the remainder out of every consumer food dollar reaches the American farmer.

That means if corn goes from $4 to $6 as Mr. Barry dearly laments, it does NOT represent a gross increase in the cost of that food item. It adds ONLY 11 cents of cost to each pound. Let me repeat that....the price increase in corn as a commodity has only added ELEVEN CENTS to the cost of a pound of food.

In the area where I farm there are basically five major types of corn grown. They are Pop-Corn (a big majority of the Orvil Reddenbacher and Weaver pop-corn is probably grown within 40 miles of where I'm sitting right now.), waxy corn (which is a variation of commercial dent corn, often referred to as High Lysine corn and grown under contract for animal feed), seed corn (this is the hybridization process that provides the seed stock we need for each subsequent year and it is grown only under contract), sweet corn (this is the stuff grown specifically for human consumption and really not much of it is grown around here. Most of it is grown in California or warmer climates because it has a very short growing season, so you can have multiple crops per year) and #2 Yellow Dent corn or what we often refer to as 'commercial corn'. It is traded openly on the Chicago Board of Trade and around the world overnight on different worldwide commodity markets.

Commercial corn is the subject of all this hand-wringing.

Last year American Farmers planted more #2 Yellow Dent commercial corn than ever before in history and it was 85 million acres, but only 9% of the corn taken off those acres went into the food chain.

It was used mostly to make corn sweetener in soft drinks and as corn oil used in the production of margarine. Of the rest 42% went into livestock feed, 17% was exported and ONLY 22% was used for the production of ethanol.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW HOW THE NON-FARM PUBLIC IS BEING FED A LINE OF HORSE MANURE BY THE EAST COAST LIBERAL MEDIA TYPES?

Only 22% of the biggest corn crop in history was used for ethanol production so how could that drive food prices up so high and starve needy children?

Here's where the punch line comes at the end of this joke: OPEC revenues have increased more than FIVE TIMES in the past few years and 38 of the 40 poorest countries in the world are OPEC oil importers. OPEC and their host country's need for oil is causing the children to starve...NOT THE AMERICAN FARMER!

I will touch upon this again in the future because I find this farm economics ignorance ridiculous and won't allow it to be thrown in my face. The bottom line is ethanol production efficiency is increasing each day as we learn more about the equipment and its offers the American consumer who refuses to park their own personal automobiles an alternative additive to foreign oil imports while benefiting a hard working, loyal class of Americans...THE AMERICAN FARMER.

Mr. Barry of the Bloomberg Reports doesn't know his azz from a hole in the ground!

All The Best,
Frank W. James