07/20/11, 09:19 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: W Mo
Posts: 9,269
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ladycat
I looked up info about the corn crop. There are a lot of articles, some pessimistic and some optimistic.
Here's one I found:
"Because of an arbitrary federal mandate, larger and larger amounts of ethanol will be produced from the corn crop, and less will be used to feed the animals needed for America's dinner plates."
Roenigk adds that some analysts expect this year’s corn crop could shrink below current USDA projections. “If that is correct,” he says, “then even less corn will be available for poultry and livestock feed because the ethanol sector will always get enough to fulfill the mandate. Ethanol producers will always be able to outbid livestock and poultry producers because the fuel industry is required by law to buy ethanol."
http://www.cattlenetwork.com/cattle-...8.html?ref=348
If we do have a poor crop, what about that ethanol mandate? What if it came to the point where there was only enough available for ethanol and not enough left for livestock? |
This isn't the whole picture. Distillers grains, what is left after they produce ethanol, can be fed to livestock and this is common practice. Either Amarillo or Hereford, they have a big ethanol plant and big feedlots nearby to utilize their by products. So using the corn for ethanol doesn't entirely remove it from the food chain. The extra demand jacks up the price of corn, though.
The drought sell-off is going to hold cow numbers down and they are already the lowest since the 50s or 60s nationally. The cows going to slaughter from drought stricken areas puts protein in the pipeline short term but doesn't help the long term problem. If demand holds up, beef is gonna be expensive for awhile.
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Laura Ingalls Wilder
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