Today, FarmEcon LLC released RFS, Fuel and Food Prices, and the Need for Statutory Flexibility,
a study of ethanol’s impact on food prices and the rural
economy. FarmEcon prepared the study for the American Meat Institute,
California Dairies Inc., Milk Producers Council, National Cattlemen’s
Beef Association, National Chicken Council, National Pork Producers
Council, and National Turkey Federation.
The study argues that the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), commonly known as the ethanol mandate, harms both consumers and meat, poultry, and dairy producers, and should be reformed. The RFS has “destabilized corn and ethanol prices by offering an almost risk-free demand volume guaranty to the corn-based ethanol industry.” Consequently, food producers who use corn as a feedstock “have been forced to bear a disproportionate share of market and price risk” when corn yields fall and prices rise. This has become painfully obvious in recent weeks as drought conditions in the Midwest depress yields and push corn prices to record highs.
Appropriate reform* would assure food producers ”automatic market access” to corn stocks “in the event of a natural disaster and a sharp reduction in corn production.” Ethanol producers should “bear the burden of market adjustments, along with domestic food producers and corn export customers.” The study also recommends that the RFS schedule ”be revised to reflect the ethanol industry’s inability to produce commercially viable cellulosic fuels.”
Read more: http://www.globalwarming.org/2012/07/19/ethanol-added-14-5-billion-to-consumer-motor-fuel-costs-in-2011-study-finds/
The study argues that the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), commonly known as the ethanol mandate, harms both consumers and meat, poultry, and dairy producers, and should be reformed. The RFS has “destabilized corn and ethanol prices by offering an almost risk-free demand volume guaranty to the corn-based ethanol industry.” Consequently, food producers who use corn as a feedstock “have been forced to bear a disproportionate share of market and price risk” when corn yields fall and prices rise. This has become painfully obvious in recent weeks as drought conditions in the Midwest depress yields and push corn prices to record highs.
Appropriate reform* would assure food producers ”automatic market access” to corn stocks “in the event of a natural disaster and a sharp reduction in corn production.” Ethanol producers should “bear the burden of market adjustments, along with domestic food producers and corn export customers.” The study also recommends that the RFS schedule ”be revised to reflect the ethanol industry’s inability to produce commercially viable cellulosic fuels.”
Read more: http://www.globalwarming.org/2012/07/19/ethanol-added-14-5-billion-to-consumer-motor-fuel-costs-in-2011-study-finds/
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