According to a recent story in the Corn and Soybean Digest, a group of 30 state and national agribusiness groups are asking the USDA to let farmers plant corn on land currently set aside for conservation through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).
Why take this land out of conservation? Yep: ethanol. These groups, who mostly represent livestock producer interests, say they need that land to grow enough corn for both ethanol and livestock.
Most CRP land has been set aside because it's not well-suited to crop production -- it's prone to severe erosion, it floods regularly, it's hilly and therefore tough to work, etc. Under current regulations, farmers are penalized for taking land out of CRP before its registration term expires.
Putting corn on marginal land for a minuscule amount of fuel. Not a good idea.
To be fair, we do have to sympathize with the livestock producers who are faced with an increasingly tight corn supply. I mean, we know we can't feed our cattle anything else.
Comments
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Tom Philpott Posted 3:48 am
28 Feb 2007
As for politicians, it pleases those key constituencies and looks green, because ethanol is "renewable" energy. Who would it please to stop it? Besides Julia, me, and the indefatigable Ray Wallace?
The question becomes: how to craft an effective political opposition to this nonsense? Voting Democratic probably won't cut it.
Victual Reality
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Biodiversivist Posted 5:49 am
28 Feb 2007
I would think that continued pressure from blogs might eventually have an effect. If people get the notion that driving a flex fuel SUV is something to be embarrassed about, they will stop buying the stuff. Government can only force so much of it down our throats, then what, will we export it to Brazil?
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Karen Orr Posted 5:59 am
28 Feb 2007
You can read Ray Wallace's excellent article, "Ethanol: A Costly Snake Oil
and Danger to America." at this link
http://www.energyjustice.net/ethanol/basics/
The Energy Justice Network is a great source of information about ethanol
and other energy issues. Here you go ~
http://www.energyjustice.net/
Karen Orr
Florida
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Ron Steenblik Posted 7:37 am
28 Feb 2007
Many Gristmill contributors no doubt cringe when they read glowing articles about biofuels in the mainstream media. One can almost guarantee that any given article will contain a sentence about how biofuels are "supported by environmentalists." One needs no better indicator of the probability that the writers of these articles have spoken with no more than a handful of "environmentalists" on the topic, and if they have it has most likely a spokesperson from the WorldWatch Institute -- which, incidentally, has just established a "Bioenergy Wiki" -- the UN Foundation or one of the other big-name institutions promoting biofuels as THE ANSWER to addressing energy-security concerns, farm subsidies, rural poverty, etc., etc.
What no MSM outlet has picked up on (from what I can see) is what was described to me once by somebody from a Washington-based NGO as the "circular firing squads" -- internal divisions -- over biofuels within individual NGOs.
However, if anybody wants to know what the John Q Public thinks about biofuels (I warn you, it can be a depressing experience), have a browse through readers' comments to articles on websites posted by Business Week or Technology Review.
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Delay And Deny Posted 8:21 am
28 Feb 2007
While Gristers somerset over thoughts of biofuel, some sobering thoughs. Cornland is appreciating three times faster than Manhatten condos. I saw an article about local Washington dairy farmers, who can no longer sell milk at a profit, because their corn feed is being bought up for biofuels.
So when you're sitting there, starving, in your biofuel powered SmartCar, with no money to go to a restaurant, or even buy some chicken at the supermarket -- you have only yourselves to blame.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.
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Biodiversivist Posted 9:34 am
28 Feb 2007
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/5/13/213817/525
On the surface, what could be more appealing to your typical environmentalist than a carbon neutral, renewable, environmentally benign fuel? The problem is, that fuel does not exist yet.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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GreenEngineer Posted 10:00 am
28 Feb 2007
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Ron Steenblik Posted 6:30 pm
28 Feb 2007
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Julia Olmstead Posted 12:35 am
01 Mar 2007
And jabailo -- I don't think you'll find a collection of bloggers much more skeptical of biofuels than those of us here at Gristmill.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:52 am
01 Mar 2007
Farmland is soaring in price as well.
This is all a major move to consolidate riches and power in fewer and fewer corporate hands and empoverish we the people. Pure evil. What else can be expected from bonnie prince duuhbya and The Evil Lord cheney of Halliburton? Preemptive attack on Iran with nuke-u-ler bunker busters?
Yep.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Tom Philpott Posted 12:57 am
01 Mar 2007
A lot of farmers are now plowing their own cash and savings into ethanol plants.Uh-oh.
Victual Reality
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amazingdrx Posted 1:01 am
01 Mar 2007
And all the soil that has built up and stored carbon over the years it was in the conservation reserve program will be released once chemical fertilizer is added to grow monocrop genetically modified corn for fuel.
The chemical fertilizer runoff will produce huge new amounts of methane (20 times worse as a gHG than CO2) from wetlands.
And of course already dissapearing aquifers will be further drained to irrigate the corn.
Compare these awful outcomes to switching to serial plugin hybrid drivetrains that will have vehicles getting 200+ mpg. A move, that with government encouragement, would cut gas costs for american families and keep fuel farming from creating huge food price rises.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Ron Steenblik Posted 3:03 am
01 Mar 2007
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gmunger Posted 3:27 am
01 Mar 2007
Two thoughts: First, I think the so-called netroots phenomenon is real and still way underestimated. So one answer is, spread the word. Email your friends. Make some e-noise.
Which dovetails into my second thought. And I know it becomes a broken record (is that still an acceptable cliche' in the tech age?), but we also must, collectively and individually but en masse, let our elected representatives, regardless of party, know that we are watching and listening. And if they don't get the message, we'll find someone who does. It is really our only hope. Are you listening, Senators Baucus and Tester? Congressman Rehberg?
And, by the way, thanks to folks like Tom Philpott for leading the way.
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rivergal Posted 8:20 am
01 Mar 2007
The CRP program is voluntary. It's supposed to be used to pay farmers to establish "long term covers" (think healthy plant communities that stabilize the soil and do not require annual cultivation, weeding, fertilizers, etc.) to benefit soil conservation, wildlife, water quality, etc.
Corn is planted annually, either by plowing and harrowing the land or by using "no till" techniques that require massive amounts of herbicides to keep weeds at bay. It is one of our most chemical-intensive crops. There is no way I'm going to let the government use my conservation tax dollars to subsidise farmers for profitable cultivation of their land that has negative conservation impacts.
The noive of some people . . .
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amazingdrx Posted 8:59 am
01 Mar 2007
The public clamor for plugin hybrid production by automakers is growing. Widespread introduction would most certainly kill off fuel farming. With 200+ mpg cars, gas would drop in price enough to bankrupt all the corporate refiners that really get the subsidies.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 1:15 am
02 Mar 2007
Democrats are boosting ethanol with subsidies to buy votes in farm states and harvest agribizz "donations" (bribes). Without campaign finance reform these bribes are the norm for all successfull political factions.
But our only path as environmentalists is to rehabilitate the party away from this corruption. Campaign finance reform will only happen under democratic party leadership. Switching to any third party will just hand a win to the GOP.
And as we have seen, due to GOP co-option by corporatarian neoconman trickery, that is not a viable option. The GOP is no longer conservative or republican, it is neoconservative.
Continuous war for empire is the constant hidden agenda that trumps any other consideration under this leadership. This end justifies any means for them, and the GOP is allowing this co-option of their party and this nation.
Join your local democratic party and expose fuel farming corruption at every chance. Elected democrats at least listen to the grassroots. If we join up and holler loud enough, fuel farming can be killed.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Karen Orr Posted 5:47 am
02 Mar 2007
That's what the Florida Chapter of the Sierra Club did. The Florida Sierra Club opposes the growing, harvesting and processing of crops for biofuels.
Put together the best articles and easily read studies that expose fuel farming and hand them to the governor, legislators and their aides. If you can do this as a representative of an organization, that's excellent.
Visit your state secretary of agriculture and expose fuel farming. That should be good for a laugh (see Farm to Fuel: http://www.florida-agriculture.com/farmtofuel.htm)and might start a buzz at the Capitol. That's what I'm doing in a few weeks. Beyond the entertainment value, I don't expect a positive result given the zeitgeist and the money - but it's a start.
Write columns and letters to your local and state newspapers exposing fuel farming. Expect venomous personal attacks, especially if you live near a university that receives and expects corporate and government money to study biofuel production. But do it anyway. It's really quite fun.
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