CamoHunter870

I'd say it's easy to blame the goverment and their interest in ethanol and sub's that have caused grain prices to go up but in the big picture, that's a small percentage of whats caused this over the past few years. It's the global market in feeding a growing world along with many many other things that has caused the increase in grain prices. I believe only 20-25% of the corn market is used for ethanol so 75% is going some place else.

In relation to tiling thats both a negative and a positive when it comes to soil erosion because often times,tiling involves putting in intakes so terraces are made which helps with erosion control. On the other hand, puting in tiling in flat areas to drain alittle water, I'd say I wouldn't agree with that.

Like AJB mentioned, I think it's really really funny that quite a few people on here are bashing what farmers are doing to their land and sound like they are the worst people in Iowa but yet when the fall comes around, you are kissing their *** to hunt on their land. Funny how that works my friends.

As citizen's of the US, would you rather have farmers getting subsidy's to grow corn to use for ethanol and put their income back in the US economy or purchase more oil from areas of the world that wants to kill us??

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Jack L

No one's ownership of their land is absolute. There are restrictions of some sort on everyone in and out of town. The question is where should those restrictions be drawn.

In Belle's pictures of the bad decisions, it seems pretty clear lines have been crossed. I mean plowing up so close to the river that your crop is falling in the water, really! How is that good for anyone?

In my opinion good farmers not only say they are stewards of the land, their decisions reflect that. In the recent past too many have made decisions that crossed the line and many, if left to their own devices without some type of conservation controls, will continue to do so.

We talk about jobs and the economy as if they are the only factor to take into account when deciding what decision to make with a resource.

As Aldo Leopold said;

“We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”

feathhd

No I wouldn't want farmers to get a subsidy for ethanol so they could put our tax payer money into their pocket. In fact I would like to see the subsidy paid out for ethanol to build more dam oil refineries in this country to refine the oil here and distribute it here so that we the tax payers can keep our money in our own dam pockets.

The problem has never been that we don't have oil, the number 1 problem is refinery capabilities / capacity. We don't have the ability to refine the oil as needed. Truth.
1 out of every 3 ears of corn grown in Iowa is used as an alternative energy source. Really you save nothing by putting that crap in your car or truck. You burn it faster and that means you will fill up more at the station.

Try it, fill up your car with that junk and see how many miles you get write it down. Then fill up your car with the good stuff and see how many miles you get.

Along with that, you take food off the table and that leads to other increases in food supply. It is a chain reaction of events that cost us more money. This crap was tried in the 70's and it didn't work and by subsidizing it is again creating a false market that simply over time is and will continue to cost us as a whole more money than we can afford as a country. From environmental clean ups to federal flood disasters, the problem will continue to get bigger and your 500 year flood will be an annual event that is un-sustainable Economically.

How much has food prices gone up since we have started putting corn in the tank as a substitute for real Gas? 40% 60% what?

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ringbill

I had a nice long response typed and my login timed out. crap.

I work at an ethanol plant. Right now we are at net gain of 100 btu's to produce 137 btu's of ethanol. Gasoline is around even. The technology is there to improve for the ethanol plants, and they are. We are getting better.

Is ethanol the answer? no. Are we building more ethanol plants? no.

So production of ethanol has increased, with the same amount of plants in operation. They have become more efficient in the process. You can use it in an engine that all of us already own. It will be around to help out the oil industry for a while. The infastructure is in place to produce, transport, and consume the product. We all own combustion engines driven with liquid fuel. Until the day comes that we need to give these up, it will be around, saving us money and allowing us a domestically produced fuel to fall back on. Produced by us, consumed by us.

People bitch about ethanol being subsidised because corn is. Well, I think the billions of dollars a day we spend in oil rich countries for the past 4 decades is more than enough subsidies for the oil industry.

Tiling has been around for years folks, and very wide spread. Hardin county wa 90% wetlands in 1900. It was 10% in 1982. Do you think that water drained its self? That was long before ethanol was a factor in crop production.

If you really want to point a finger, you might as well point it toward the government, and for the right reason. They have turned farmering into a business and not a way of life. Small farmers are an endangered species. They made if very clear about 10 years ago that they wanted to turn farming into a business and they succeeded admirably. Its much easier for agribusiness to come up with 10,000 to take out fence rows, and get a return on their investment.

Its sad how quick people are to bitch about not getting permission on feilds even though many of those folks are first to jump on the famers are bad bandwagon. I think Karma is a bitch. Whether you like it or not, most of your jobs are here because of agriculture. All the internet scientist on here crack me up. You read an article that agrees with your opinion, and think to yourselves "God I am Smart". Instead you fail to look to see if it was an essay, when it was published, or look for sources sited. You don't even look for an alternate source to confirm your theory. But I guess since Al Gore invented the Internet in the 1990's, the internet always updates itself and deletes inacurate information that has been posted.

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Kevin

That sucks. Next time you log in make sure you check mark "remember me." Either way I just changed the login time to 130 minutes (from 70), but if you want it to always keep you logged in (and not log you out) check mark the remember me.

On with the discussion.

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ringbill

I wish I would have read that sooner Kevin. It just happened again.

Bill,

Everything except for the fact that the US needs more Oil Refineries is false. Most of the corn that is used for ethanol was for Cattle feed. Once processed, 1 bushel of corn has the nutritional value of 1.3 bushels of corn. That is after the ethanol has been produced. Have you ever noticed corn in cow shit before?

There is 16 cents worth of corn in corn flakes at 7 dollar corn. The price rose over a dollar in 10 years on corn flakes. You tell me what made the price go up. It wasn't Ethanol, it was the uneducated that think exactly the way your do.

I run my 2500 on that "junk" called 89 octane and I lose 10 miles on a 20 gallon tank. It amounts to an 11 cent loss total on an entire tank. Vehicles that get better gas milage see savings with this blend. How many wars have been faught over oil? How many over ethanol?

Get a grip, brother.

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Richard Hedd

Here's a good read regarding ethanol from Forbes, who tends to know a little something about economics.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspe...and-tortillas/

The bottom line is the food versus fuel issue is very real and it will only get worse. To meet the 2022 mandate of 35 billion gallons of biofuels using corn-based ethanol, crop land dedicated to corn will have to increase from 88 million acres to 233 million acres. That would increase the total crop land in the U.S. to 461 million acres, which is highly unrealistic. The most U.S. crop land ever planted was 375 million acres, back in 1932.

Additionally, in 2000, fuel ethanol used 5.9 percent of the U.S. corn crop, and corn was priced at $1.85 per bushel. But last year, fuel ethanol used 38.4 percent of the U.S. corn crop, and corn was $5.40 per bushel.

The use of corn-based ethanol costs the country perhaps an incremental amount of nearly $4 per gallon, doubling the cost per gallon in the portion that is ethanol compared to petroleum in motor fuel. It is thus evident that corn-based ethanol has evolved into the least attractive of all energy ideas of today.

Richard Hedd

Figures from Iowa State University Extension confirmed that Iowa’s ethanol plants operated in the red during January, to the tune of 11 cents per gallon. That comes after operating margins of 19 cents per gallon in December, 69 cents in November, 42 cents in October and 34 cents in September. The first quarter is typically a tough period for ethanol as gasoline demand falls, but ethanol producers had feared a more severe downturn than usual this year due to continued high prices for corn and the loss of the 45-cents per gallon federal tax credit on Jan. 1.

Considering previous profit margins, only one of the last 4 months would have been profitable without the 45-cent tax credit. With it now gone, I'd be considering a career change. This thing is going to come crashing down and a lot of people are going to get hurt bad, and it would be best to be out before it happens. Just my opinion. I was in a construction related field right when the bottom was started to fall out of the housing market, and I changed fields. Good thing, or I would have been out on my ass.

Richard Hedd

By the way, my issue isn't with farmers. It's their land to profit off of, and they can take out every damn fence for all I care. Waterways are another story however, since they affect everyone downstream. My issue is with the ethanol scam. Farms exist to feed the world, not supplement our fuel.

bullcan

[QUOTE=CamoHunter870;364138]Like AJB mentioned, I think it's really really funny that quite a few people on here are bashing what farmers are doing to their land and sound like they are the worst people in Iowa but yet when the fall comes around, you are kissing their *** to hunt on their land. Funny how that works my friends.
QUOTE]

Well when every treeline and fencerow are bulldozed where will we be begging to hunt?

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The walmart parking lot

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ringbill

January has been the toughest margin for ethanol for the last 5 years. We showed a net loss during those months, and a profit during the other 11. I guess one bad month a year in a business and I should consider another career?

I know exactly what is going on with margins. We lost 7 cents a gallon in January, and are showing a profit of 19 cents for February. 7 cents a gallon is the least we have lost in January in the last 5 years. It just plain cost more to run an ethanol plant when it is the coldest.

What exactly do you think happened during those last three months of the credit, with all the blenders knowing that they were going to lose their credit? They bought all the ethanol they could afford and store. Janruary would have been our first profitable January in those 5 years if the demand for January was not decreased by the blenders taking advantage of the last months of the credit. I figured that was obvious. If we considered every business a bust that had a few bad months, where the hell would anyone work?

The corn numbers you are refering too are the ethanol boom. Plants were being built and put on line. There are no more plants being built. how are we going to use that much corn. Common sense is a great thing when you apply it. Right now we are running through 30% less corn anually. why you ask? Better enzymes, upgraded systems, and a better over all knowledge of grain handling. We are currently running screenings, and damaged corn through our plant. We have a very low starch loss at the end of fermentation.

If there were not enough cattle in the US to consume our byproducts, we would have to shut down. Its pretty simple. Dried Distiller Grains have a shelf life of 2-4 weeks. It is supply and demand. The cattle industry is the demand for the by product. It is taking corn that would have been fed to the cattle, enhancing it, and then going right to our food supply. I haven't seen a cow eating plastic for dinner that has lived to see a market.

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ringbill

Sorry, I forgot to mention your faulty math on the blenders credit. The blenders credit has absolutely no effect on the price of ethanol. It was givin to the gasoline companies, not the ethanol plants. You taking 45 cents away from the profit per gallon is completely false. We never saw a dime of the 45 cent blenders credit. Ethanol was 2.20 a gallon, and took a very small dip when there was no demand in January. Today it is worth 2.20 a gallon once again. Do you understand?

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If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government--and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws.
Edward Abbey