Ethanol, Bad!

Farmers are more and more reliant on ethanol production than food production.

Scott Irwin says agriculture’s fortunes are now tethered more to ethanol than food, making crop growers vulnerable to sharp price swings at filling stations rather than the typically slower cost shifts at grocery stores.

“We’re just experiencing the full brunt of this new source of volatility,” said Irwin, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics. “When food prices were the main trigger, recessionary impacts were much less direct and much more gradual. Now, there’s this new connection through energy costs that immediately gets translated to agriculture.”

With fuel prices coming down and the Wall Street credit crunch many ethanol plants may close. There never has been a natural market for ethanol. It is time to end it's subsidies.