Ethanol is a joke!

[isuno1fan]

I would like to hear how this comes about..........please humor me story teller.

THIS is the joke if you are oblivious to the impact on wildlife habitat.

I am the farthest thing from a tree hugger "buddy", but I do enjoy a good pheasant hunt and you ethanol bandwagoners are the one's spinning the big wad of misinformation if you don't think this industry is resulting in declining bird populations in Iowa.

Enjoy your record corn prices while you can because your world will soon be crashing down. Most aren't as brainwashed as you appear to be.

 

[isuno1fan]

so they can live in those fields for what, june, july, and august? what happens from harvest till planting time when there is no cover in those fields? i guess they will thrive on the dirt, bean stubble and chopped stalks.

At least someone gets it. Reps to you.

 

[CarolinaCy]

and at $6 a bushel, cattle and hog farmers are losing money feeding animals, therefore they are raising less. WE DON'T EAT FIELD CORN!!! extra corn doesn't mean extra food.

WHAT!?! Are you serious? You work in the agriculture industry and you think this is true? Yeah, the can of corn you buy at Hy-Vee isn't field corn, but where do you think the 62 million tons of corn exported by the US goes? To feed cattle around the world? Not hardly. Check a food label sometime, if the product you are eating contains corn, it ain't sweet corn.

 

[clone52]

It we got rid of corn ethanol cold turkey right at this moment, it would not help things very much. Prices would remain high because of the increased food demand and farmers would still be trying to plant as much as possible.

 

[jbhtexas]

and at $6 a bushel, cattle and hog farmers are losing money feeding animals, therefore they are raising less. WE DON'T EAT FIELD CORN!!! extra corn doesn't mean extra food.

Maybe those farmers should find something better to feed to the cattle. The digestive system of cattle is not designed to digest the primarily corn diet that the cattle get in feedlots, but rather, it has been designed to digest grass. The sooner cattle get back to eating what they should be eating, the healthier we'll all be.

And before you ask...I grew up on a beef cattle farm, and we did not feed our cattle a primarily corn diet (or much corn at all for that matter).

 

[jbhtexas]

if you don't see that there is almost no crp left anymore, then you are blindly going into this discussion. fact is, look around. nobody has crp ground anymore due to $6 corn, which is that high because of ethanol.

I have several hundred acres of CRP, and it's going to stay that way for the foreseeable future...

 

[isuno1fan]

I have several hundred acres of CRP, and it's going to stay that way for the foreseeable future...

You are a growing minority. It goes beyond CRP however.

 

[dmclone]

I could car less about declining turkey, deer(I doubt they are declining), pheasant, etc. On the other hand, I don't think ethanol is a very good choice for alternative energy. Right now it's all we got and you usually break even using E10 so I use it.

I think ethanol is subsidized 51 cents per gallon. I'd like to see that money go to another alternative energy source because corn based ethanol is not our future.

 

[Cyclonesrule91]

if you don't see that there is almost no crp left anymore, then you are blindly going into this discussion. fact is, look around. nobody has crp ground anymore due to $6 corn, which is that high because of ethanol.

There has not been that much ground in CRP that has gone into production because there is a stiff penalty to take it out before the 10 yr program is completed. There was 2.9 million acres across the US that came out of CRP last year and that is nationwide so not very much percentagewise and that would have come out if it was $6 corn or $1.80 corn. There has been talks by the government about releasing more CRP ground but it is very doubtfull that will happen especially with this being an election year.

Also ethanol is only slightly to blame for $6 corn. The last two years there have been droughts in different parts of the world that are major wheat producers so wheat bushels have been way down the last couple years. Worldwide, wheat is a huge food supplier and that is partly to blame for higher corn because corn is the best alternative to wheat as a substitute for some of the food needs. Corn is also high because nationally last year yields were not as good in the best producing corn belt states. Ethanol was started to lessen the dependency on foreign oil and at the time corn was the best supply of the starchs needed to convert to ethanol. So the increased price of corn has more to do with the worldwide supply situation of wheat and corn as a substitute and ethanol starting when it did is naturally the scapegoat the media blames and runs with.

 

[C.John]

Around here, E85 is $1 cheaper that regular unleaded($2.89 compared to $3.89) so E85 is approx 26% cheaper. Based on a generalized 20% loss in mpg, in theory, IF my wifes Outback was able to run on E85 I would be able to save less than 2cents per mile if I used E85. Unleaded costs me $0.175/mile while E85 works out to $0.158/mile. Over 12K miles E85 would save me $204.

What does all that mean? Don't know, I was just bored.

 

[bmuff]

the wildlife habitats that every farmer in america is plowing up so they can plant corn. look around. there is hardly any setaside left anymore. yes it burns cleaner, but how much extra pollutants go into the air to make it? a lot of emmisions from the plants i see. food prices are going up because farmers can't afford to feed their livestock corn anymore. it's 6 bucks a bushel and they are losing about 60 bucks a head right now. gluton is the bi-product you speak of and yes it is a cheap method to feed cattle, but you cannot only feed them gluton-it will kill them. i sell livestock and grain trailers for a living so i deal with this stuff on a daily basis. ethanol is not the answer.

You mean DDGS. Yeah, you can only feed about 20% of the diet to cattle. But research is ongoing to take out the oil (and sell to biodiesel) to make them a larger part of the diet. And you are going to tell farmers NOT to plant corn on their ground? Talking about dumb subsidies, is the ethanol subsidy worse than the government paying farmers to not plant corn? That one seems pretty dumb to me.

The price of corn will not stay this high forever. It will go down and feeding cattle will become profitable again. In the mean time, we will have developed an infrastructure that will allow us to utilize cellulosic ethanol. Farmers will eventually be hauling bails of switchgrass (or some other plant) to these ethanol plants instead of just corn.

 

[CarolinaCy]

You are a growing minority. It goes beyond CRP however.

What's beyond CRP? Do you think farmers are plowing up hayfields and pasture to cash in on the gold rush of ethanol? I really doubt there's much of that going on. In fact, my grandfather isn't planting any more corn than any other time in his 60+ years of crop farming. I guess he's just too stupid to cash in.

 

[dmclone]

To be a better deal:

If regular gas is $3.69
E10 should be close to $3.56 or less.
E85 should be close to $2.62 or less.

 

[c.y.c.l.o.n.e.s]

You don't think that farming every single acre of land for ethanol is destroying wildlife habitat? Most farm fields pre-ethanol would have alot of bird cover left untouched. Since ethanol and the inflated corn prices, every last corner of every field is planted. Do you think it is a coicidence that Iowa's pheasant counts have dropped significantly over the last 5-10 years? It's not. Heck...try to find a covey of quail in Iowa anymore...it's damn near impossible...and yes...this is because of ethanol and the need for corn.

OK, First of all, farmers have been farming from fence line to fence line for years. One of the main reasons why this started was because corn prices were so LOW that they had get as much yield/acre as possible to turn a profit.

Pheasants are imported from China. Their sole purpose was to be hunted. If their habitat is being reduced (no question that it is), the only people that hurt from it are hunters.

And, not directly related to this post, but are you guys actually saying that farmers are wrong for taking subsidies to produce corn instead of taking subsidies to NOT produce corn (CRP)?

 

[cyeah]

We just tested it this weekend on our trip to Nashville. My wife's grand am got 37 mpg with regular, 35 with ethanol. Not enough to make up the 20 cents a gallon.

I get around 20 (20.08 m.p.g.) on ethanol, the last tank with straight gas was 22.84 m.p.g.

The current price difference at the Urbandale Casey's is ethanol - 3.659, unleaded - 3.789 the difference is .13 per gallon or 3.55% more for unleaded.

The m.p.g. improvement is 2.76 m.p.g. which is 13.75% improvement.

in order for ethanol to make financial sense it would have to be priced at 3.279 per gallon or less.

Each vehichle is going to be different.

 

[dmclone]

I get around 20 (20.08 m.p.g.) on ethanol, the last tank with straight gas was 22.84 m.p.g.

The current price difference at the Urbandale Casey's is ethanol - 3.659, unleaded - 3.789 the difference is .13 per gallon or 3.55% more for unleaded.

The m.p.g. improvement is 2.76 m.p.g. which is 13.75% improvement.

in order for ethanol to make financial sense it would have to be priced at 3.279 per gallon or less.

Each vehichle is going to be different.

Somewhere your math is wrong.

 

[Cyclonesrule91]

I work with a lot of farmers throughout the corn belt and have a lot of knowledge of their acreage base and planting intentions. I know of no farmers who are taking CRP out of the program early, or who are plowing up any piece of ground bigger then 100 square feet to grow corn at the expense of wildlife. I can think of 3 situations where a farmer has CRP ground that has become eligible to go back into production and have done it and the 3 collectively have brought 125 more acres back to crop production. That will kill a lot of deer. The government does not have a set aside program going on right now either and it would be stupid for them to start one now with our carryouts where they are with optimal yields let alone any drought/flood scenarios.

 

[cyeah]

and at $6 a bushel, cattle and hog farmers are losing money feeding animals, therefore they are raising less. WE DON'T EAT FIELD CORN!!! extra corn doesn't mean extra food.

We don't eat field corn? We don't eat field corn? Tell me then where the following come from:

Corn starch
Corn meal
Anhydrous Dextrose
Dextrose
Glucose
Glucose BlendsGlucose Solids
HFCS 42
HFCS 55
HFCS 90
High Maltose Syrup
Liquid Dextrose
Maltodextrin
Tapioca/Manioc/Yucca Starch
Corn Oil
Corn Gluten Feed
Corn Gluten Meal

Animal feed (I eat beef, pork, poultry, etc. all use corn in production)

By the way, I checked my math and it is not incorrect:
(22.84/20.08)-1 = 13.75% Mileage change
(3.789/3.659)-1 = 3.55% Price change

 

[Cyclonesrule91]

so they can live in those fields for what, june, july, and august? what happens from harvest till planting time when there is no cover in those fields? i guess they will thrive on the dirt, bean stubble and chopped stalks.

Corn and soybeans are an abundant good food source for the wildlife. The wildlife don't go and stake a claim on the 25 square foot of prairie and call it their home. They move around all the time. The point I was making was there is a plentifull food source.

 

[CYVADER]

You mean DDGS. Yeah, you can only feed about 20% of the diet to cattle. But research is ongoing to take out the oil (and sell to biodiesel) to make them a larger part of the diet. And you are going to tell farmers NOT to plant corn on their ground? Talking about dumb subsidies, is the ethanol subsidy worse than the government paying farmers to not plant corn? That one seems pretty dumb to me.

The price of corn will not stay this high forever. It will go down and feeding cattle will become profitable again. In the mean time, we will have developed an infrastructure that will allow us to utilize cellulosic ethanol. Farmers will eventually be hauling bails of switchgrass (or some other plant) to these ethanol plants instead of just corn.

right. dry distillers grain and gluton are both biproducts that are fed to livestock. and no, i wouldn't tell farmers not to plant corn-in fact i stated earlier that if i owned land i would be renting it out to farmers at twice what the gov't is giving to not have it farmed. i do agree that the price of corn will go down, and probably within a year. as for the crp programs, they are all but gone. sure they are "talking" about opening some more up, but again, who is going to take $100 an acre to not plant corn when they can charge $200 cash rent to a farmer who will plant? they don't have near the programs they used to. my parents own some farms that used to be all crp ground, and now they have hardly any left. my dad is keeping about 40 acres unplanted that we are getting no income from the gov't on just for conservation purposes.