Food and Fuel America.com: Corn Ethanol Has Minimal Impact on Food Prices

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Corn Ethanol Has Minimal Impact on Food Prices

The production of ethanol from corn has had minimal impact on consumer food prices while reducing fuel costs to consumers across the country, according to a new study released earlier this month.

U.S. Senator E. Benjamin Nelson (NE), Chairman of the Ethanol Across America education campaign, hailed a new Issue Brief on The Impact of Ethanol Production on Food, Feed, and Fuel (pdf) as a calm voice in a debate that has become confused due to misinformation.

"America's farmers are the most efficient and productive in the world," said Senator Nelson. "While there is new demand for corn and other agricultural products resulting from our effort to produce biofuels, we are seeing increased yields and a likely leveling of prices. We are also working hard to diversify our biofuel production by utilizing new feedstocks that range from specialty energy crops to waste materials."

The Issue Brief notes that while corn prices have indeed nearly doubled in the past year, according to the U.S. Commerce Department's Consumer Price Index (CPI), food costs have increased within their historical annual average of 2.9%. However, fuel prices have risen 82% since 2006 and according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture have had a much greater impact on food prices due to higher costs of bringing products to market and food processing

America needs to continue to invest in biofuels to produce our own energy, improve the environment and create jobs and domestic economic prosperity.

So despite the rhetoric that we all read everyday, we know that shipping our money off to foreign lands to continue dependence is really the poor option.

Source: Ethanol Across America

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