Bill Chameides’s Posts

• The corn identity

  How Congress is shortchanging our health and sweetening things for the food industry 10

  Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

  

  Are we becoming children of the corn, thanks in part to large subsidies and overproduction?

  Photo: NREL/Warren Gretz

  At dinner Sunday night, I asked my friend Prasad if he knew about the new farm bill and what it means for average Americans. He didn't.

  I wasn't surprised. With the election, the war, and rising prices to fret about, not many people are pondering legislation about farms. But they should, because it has huge implications for the… Read More

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Bill Chameides’s Recent Comments

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  Back door to a regressive tax?

  Hey folks, since you're commenting on my post - http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/nicholas/insider/thegreengro ... - I thought I would weigh in. It was not my thesis that carbon taxes are necessarily regressive; for example, see my specific reference to "tax and dividend." My point was the conservatives pushing a carbon tax probably don't have a progressive version of the carbon tax in mind. Perhaps, I was suggesting, they see the carbon tax as a back door to a regressive tax.

  Dr. Bill Chameides is the dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.

  On More on conservatives and carbon taxes posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 15 Responses

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  Government policies affect what farmers grow

  All these statistics and quotes are fine, but let's focus on the bottom line.

  Does anyone question the notion that government subsidies for ethanol have:
  
      1. led farmers to plant more corn, and
      2. helped drive up the prices for corn?

  And as I describe below, the rush to corn has likely driven up the price of soybeans as well since many farmers are converting land cultivated in soybeans to land cultivated in corn.

  This is what Chad Hart, an economist at the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development at Iowa State, predicted in September 2006:

  Increased feed demand and increased ethanol demand translate into higher expected futures prices for both corn and soybeans. The market wants more of both commodities, but there is a limited supply of acreage. Current market signals indicate that the market wants corn acres more than soybean acres. If this trend continues, expect Iowa corn acreage to grow, Iowa soybean acreage to decline, and the proportion of Iowa acreage enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program to shrink.

  And this is what actually happened between 2006 and 2007:
  
      » corn acreage in the U.S. increased by 19%;
      » soybean acreage decreased by 15%; and
      » 2.1 million acres of land in the Conservation Reserve Program were taken out of the program.
  

  Certainly these changes are driven by market and price signals. But we need to drill down and figure out what is driving the shifts in market and price signals. Increased demand for ethanol is one of those drivers and without the federal government's mandate for and subsidy of ethanol there would not be significant demand because ethanol is not economically favorable.
  

  Bottom line: government subsidies, mandates, and other policies are directly affecting what farmers grow.

  Dr. Bill Chameides is the dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.

  On How Congress is shortchanging our health and sweetening things for the food industry posted 1 year, 7 months ago 10 Responses

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  Subsidies are a factor

  Though this post focuses on corn as an example, soybeans, wheat, and rice also get subsidies.On How Congress is shortchanging our health and sweetening things for the food industry posted 1 year, 7 months ago 10 Responses

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  Government policies do affect what farmers grow

  bharshaw: Do you really think that "government subsidies don't determine which crop a farmer will grow?"
  
  Would you not consider the federal government's mandate for ethanol in gasoline a subsidy for the corn industry? After all, is it not true that without the government mandate, we would not have seen the American farmer's great rush to corn over the last couple of years? And there has clearly been a rush -- for example, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, acreage planted in corn in the U.S. increased by about 15% between 2005 and 2007. Much of that increase appears to have occurred at the expense of acreage planted in soybeans.
  
  So does it not follow that, even in "today's market environment," government policies/subsidies can affect a farmer's choice of what to grow. And if government policies influence what farmers grow, should we not consider whether those policies make sense?On How Congress is shortchanging our health and sweetening things for the food industry posted 1 year, 7 months ago 10 Responses