Ethanol

Food and Fuel prices moving together

We now pay fuel prices for our food

In 2005 and 2007 energy bills, Congress mandated that ethanol be incorporated into fuel blends.

13.5 billion bushels of corn expected to be produced in US in 2011.

Of that, ethanol will consume 5 billion bushels - 37% of the total.

Amount used for food is 1.1 billion - 8.3% of the total.

16% of US corn is exported.

Wonder why 13.5 ounces of corn flakes costs almost $4.00. Because we now pay "fuel prices" for our food. And, as the price of oil goes up, so do food prices because food is now on two price indexes.

American farmers are planting 92.2 million acres of corn this year. That is four million acres more than we planted last year... meanwhile our corn supply is nearing a 15-year low.

It takes 26 pounds of corn to equal one gallon of ethanol.

Almost 40% of America's corn crop last year went into the gas tanks of our cars, not in the dinner pots of American homes.

Cornell University found that it takes 140 gallons of fossil fuels to plant, grow and harvest 1 acre of corn, which is around 183 bushels. Once harvested, it takes even more fossil fuels to convert the corn into ethanol. Cornell concluded that it took more fuel to produce ethanol than ethanol would yield in return. They came to the same conclusion using switchgrass, wood, soybean, and sunflowers.

[Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise]