10-11 IAT Oil and Dairy
How does a conversation about feeding dairy cows turn into a position on Saudi Arabia?
I called Jeff Williams, Chief Executive Officer and President of Glanbia foods to ask about a recent report regarding the sustainability of their cheese making business. Jeff gave a very articulate response to my questions regarding that aspect of the phone call but then we started a different line of discussion involving his perspective on how dairy farmers are doing these days in Idaho. He said one of the major challenges is feed, as in corn and then went on to explain why he was not an ethanol fan. Listen in. “I do not want to go down the road of ethanol and all of that. But it is crazy me that we earned 40% of our corn crop for fuel. The statistics that I have seen show that it is more expensive to burn corn for fuel particularly as we look at becoming the world’s largest oil producer by 2020 passing Saudi Arabia. Some of the information that I have read recently shows that the US will out produce Saudi Arabia in oil and we have a glut of natural gas right now that we are just flaring off and not even utilizing. So I think our energy policy is quite flawed and needs to certainly be looked at and I would rather see that corn going into feeding cows and humans than feeding automobiles.”
