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April 24 - MODERN DAY DAVID AND GOLIATH BATTLE UNDERWAY: If you are wondering
about what agriculture, and Corn Growers specifically, are doing to combat the misinformation in the national media regarding corn, ethanol and food prices….you are not alone. The short answer is plenty!
Just today alone the Illinois Corn Growers Association has been engaged in setting
up interviews with ABC, CBS, and Reuters out of New York all with the mission of combating the misinformation popping up daily on your TV and in your paper.
ICGA District 4 Director Craig Buhrow and his son, Allyn, spent two hours with ABC
today for the World News Tonight program. So tune in and see how the media deals with the other side of this story. Either way, they deserve credit for putting gloves on and getting in the ring. Also feel free to
checkout National Corn Growers Association President Ron Litterer on CNBC at http://www.cnbc.com/id/24292773
Many in the Ag industry are working hard on your behalf but the east coast media is
driving this story across the country and they are being spoon-fed so-called "experts" on this issue. Many of these experts know nothing about Ag or commodity markets. They are being hyped and positioned
for these stories by large PR firms who are being paid extremely well by ....you guessed it...the oil companies.
ICGA, NCGA and other are circulating tons or credible information like the Texas
A&M study and the Kansas Federal Reserve Bank's report on what is really driving food prices but a host of coastal media are largely ignoring all of this information.
I am coming to believe that the only thing that will put out this fire is a huge
corn crop, a huge wheat crop, a huge rice crop, or a major breaking story of international consequence that diverts all the media lemmings from jumping off the same cliff.
Either way this is a struggle we must engage in because this debate, this economic
struggle, is real and isn’t just for hearts and minds but for the economic well-being and quality of life for much of the planet.
This year, we will import 5 billion barrels of oil. At $120 a barrel, that amounts
to a $500 billion tax that we pay directly to foreign petro-tyrannies every year - a tribute three times the size of the economic stimulus package just passed by Congress. Think about that: What Congress is giving
us to avert recession, OPEC is taking away - three times over, according to Robert Zubrin, the author of Energy Victory. Check out this interview with Zubrin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU-RzrJdnKQ&eurl=http://corncommentary.com
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New Fuel Price Data Shows Ethanol's Cost Savings for Consumers: The
availability of ethanol is currently reducing the cost of gasoline by between 6 and 9 cents per gallon. If you have a flex fuel vehicle ethanol could be saving you 30-70 cents a gallon. Oil companies are taking note
of ethanol's blending economics in some regions. Marathon Oil Corp. switched this month to an all-ethanol product slate at 16 of its Midwestern terminals, offering only E10 and no longer offering any unblended
product. ExxonMobil also announced a similar move and is also eliminating conventional gasoline at some of its terminals and moving to pre-blended E10 instead. The U.S. now has the capacity to produce 7.9 billion
gallons of ethanol on an annual basis. More than half of the nation's gasoline contains some percentage of ethanol, most as E10, the 10 percent ethanol blend approved for use in all makes and models of
vehicles.
The move by oil not only provides a good Public relations maneuver but allows them
to make more money collecting the blender’s tax credit until they can squash ethanol in the market entirely. If you don’t think this is the end game, you might want to pay closer attention.
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