$5 Billion in Corn Ethanol Subsidies Should Be Eliminated, Food Before Fuel Urges
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY 
on 11.20.08
Cargill ethanol facility in Iowa, photo: Steven Roermerman
Regular TreeHugger readers will know that most of the posts about corn ethanol on this site are not exactly favorable, neutral at best. Compared to other feedstocks for ethanol, biodiesel, or some of the ‘green crude’ being developed, corn simply isn’t the best choice—not that other feedstocks also don’t have their problems, not by a long shot (palm oil plantations being the oft-used example). This message is increasingly become more widely received, and the $5 billion annual corn ethanol subsidy is increasingly coming under fire.
Now, on the 30th anniversary of the first federal subsidies for ethanol, a spectrum-spanning coalition (who’d think the National Turkey Association and the World Wildlife Fund would be on the same side?) is calling for president-elect Barack Obama and Congress to phase out corn ethanol subsidies.
They cited these stats to indicate that there is public support for their cause:
56% of People Want Congress to Reduce or Eliminate Ethanol Subsidy
Ipsos Public Affairs released the results of a national survey commissioned by members of the Food Before Fuel campaign. According to the Ipsos poll of 1,000 Americans, nearly nine in 10 (89%) are concerned about the rising cost of food, including 57 percent who say that they are very concerned. When provided with information about USDA data showing corn ethanol production is the cause of 10 percent of food price inflation, nearly half (49%) become less likely to support policies aimed at promoting the use of corn to produce ethanol. Moreover, when asked if they would support keeping or changing the existing Congressional policies, a majority (56%) of respondents call for Congress to change these policies by reducing or eliminating subsidies and mandates for the use of corn ethanol.
A Laundry List of Corn Ethanol Problems
In summary, the reasons cited by the group for eliminating the subsidies are well publicized: the environmental benefits of corn ethanol are not what they are claimed to be; their effect on increased food prices is genuine (if open to debate to its extent); it threatens soil, wildlife and water; it receives a disproportionate amount of support compared to other, more effective renewable energy sources such as wind and solar; and what’s more, corn ethanol would not be economically viable without government support (TH note: a fairly feeble argument considering that the same could be said of many worthy renewable energy projects—the result of hidden and not so hidden subsidies of which the fossil fuel industry can avail themselves).
More on the call to end corn ethanol subsidies: Food Before Fuel
Corn Ethanol
Round and Round We Go: Is Corn-Based Ethanol Viable?
Corn Demand from Ethanol Distilleries Vastly Understated
40 Corn Ethanol Plants Could File For Bankruptcy by Early 2009
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food before fuel, i couldent agree more. becuase i just love paying nearly 5$ foer a regular sized box of cereal. this madness has got to stop. put those subsidies to 2nd gen bio fuels like algea
Odd, given the record number of ethanol producers filing for bankruptcy, you would think the subsidy was a failure rather than just horribly expensive.
Just google "ethanol bankruptcy" and look at the number of producers squeezed (sorry, couldn't help myself) by high corn prices and low ethanol prices.
The really big FarmCorp Corporate Welfare recipients do not show up of course, they are too big.
I guess when the pie-in-the-sky "switchgrass, ag waste, etc" finally comes to pass, sanity may return. But until that time, people should not go hungry or be forced into poverty (or abject poverty) just to feed themselves and their families.
Perhaps the recent fall in oil prices will do more to close these plants than regulation/subsidy changes. They never made economic sense anyway.
What people seem to forget is that there are multiple types of corn, and when they worry about the price of edible corn spiraling out of control, that's simply because of price speculation. Ethanol is made from feed corn (for livestock), and there are so many acres of unfarmed land that the government is paying to keep unfarmed, but could ease the corn demand if it were planted.
Food before fuel, so long as the food isn't meat.
Stop wasting so much cash and energy raising one of your nations biggest poisons, and polluters.
Ethanol is a by-product of improving cattle feed. Cow’s can’t digest sugars – they are ruminants. Yeast turn sugar into ethanol and CO2. Yeast cannot eat fat, protein, vitamins, minerals, or cellulose. The leftovers from fermentation are called distillers grains and are a commodity on the NY stock exchange. Cows gain 17% more weight when feed the distillers grains than they do when the eat the raw corn. 90% of the corn in the US is feed to cattle. Fuel is not impacting the food pricing – it’s bad agriculture processes. This is high school biology. Don’t use the media to obtain your knowledge, question everything yourself.
Google David Blume if you want to educate yourself on ethanol.
The Food Before Fuels campaign is nothing more than an attempt to raise profits on the part of food producers while deflecting the blame for rising prices. The price of corn is half of what it was in the summer even though ethanol production has continued to increase. Soybeans and wheat are also down by similar amounts. If ethanol production were the cause for commodity prices rising to the levels that they did, how did they come down so dramatically without any changes in the ethanol policy?