3-17 IAN Ethanol and Cattlemen

 This next story is gonna cost me but I’ll do it anyway. Fortunately this is radio so ya’ can’t hit me with a tomato. I’m David Sparks and the controversy begins in a minute. The new President of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says governmental policy has to be a top priority for the group in 2010. One policy concern - allowing gasoline to contain 15-percent ethanol. In 2008 corn prices topped seven-dollars a bushel and the industry fears corn prices will spike again if the EPA approves an E15 blend - sending feed costs even higher.??

 But National Corn Growers  President Darrin Ihnen says blaming the ethanol industry for the economic plight of the nation’s cattlemen is inaccurate: “There’s more to this whole story than just the price of corn that’s affecting their profitability. The run-up in grain prices a year ago was speculation by the traders, world grain shortages, and increased corn export demand from a cheap dollar so it was not the fact that we were using corn for ethanol that caused this run-up in prices.”

 The Iowa Department of Economic Development approved an agreement for the final $5.25 million in financial assistance to a commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant that will produce ethanol from corn cobs. Another press release… In the near future, cellulosic ethanol will be produced across the Midwest, and farmers everywhere should start thinking about corn cobs as an additional revenue crop.