Mulch

Ethanol and the Price of Food

2008-11-17T15:28:18Z

EWG president Ken Cook wrote this piece for the Huffington Post that ran over the weekend:

In the Huffington Post on November 11th, Dave Vander Griend took aim at a coalition of food companies opposing the federal mandate for biofuels production. For months, these companies have felt the same pinch consumers in America and across the globe have felt as food prices have spiked, spurred by the US's misguided energy policy.
At the Environmental Working Group (EWG), we don't agree with some of these companies on their environmental practices. We do agree, however, that our country's rush to ethanol contributed to a dramatic rise in grain and food costs at home and abroad, including, disturbingly, in developing nations where hunger is a perennial problem. The law of supply and demand is working just the way we'd expect: when you use over 25 percent of the U.S. corn crop to produce fuel, you reduce the global food supply and push grain prices skyward. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the UN, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Oxfam agree.

Read it all here.

In more ethanol and food price related news, Phil Brasher wrote in today's Des Moines Register about the very same issue.

Economists say the growing use of crops for fuel was only one factor behind the run-up in commodity prices over the last year. Speculation in the commodity markets, higher energy costs and weather have played a role, too. Food prices are expected to moderate as well, if not drop, in the coming months. But economists say it will take some time for the decline in commodity prices - and energy costs - to work its way to the supermarket.
"If commodity prices stay as low as they are right now, we'll certainly see (food) inflation come back down to a historical level," said Ephraim Leibtag, an economist who tracks food prices for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

USDA Rumor Mill

2008-11-17T15:24:26Z

Congressional Black Caucus members are putting forward National Black Farmers Association president John Boyd for consideration as the next secretary of agriculture.

Read it here at CQ Politics.

Four Out of Evey Five Federal Dollars Spent On Renewable Fuels Goes to Ethanol

2008-11-05T20:10:20Z

An item that needs to be highlighted from Craig Cox's recent biofuels op-ed in the Des Moines Register.

The Energy Information Agency reported in April 2008 that 79 percent of all federal subsidies for renewable fuels - including solar, wind and geothermal - went to support ethanol production.

So while proven clean technologies like solar and wind scratch and claw for help from Congress, ethanol enjoys the lion's share. Meanwhile, wildlife habitat is cleared for corn production, waterways and the Gulf of Mexico are threatened by greater applications of fertilizer and pesticides, and corn ethanol may prove to make global warming worse.

Financial Times: From Hope to Husk

2008-11-03T16:17:52Z

London's Financial Times (Free Registration Required) has printed an in-depth series of stories documenting America's corn ethanol industry.

One in particular, From Hope to Husk, chronicles ethanol's financial nose dive.

It was an American dream that has failed to become a reality. For much of the last decade, enthusiasts from President George W. Bush down have touted corn-based ethanol as something approaching a superfuel, a home-grown alternative to foreign oil that would help cut smog and bring hope to struggling farmers.
It has not worked out that way. Instead, the ethanol industry has undergone a great boom and bust in which a Financial Times analysis has found investors as savvy as Bill Gates, Microsoft’s founder, have collectively lost billions of dollars.

Read the whole piece here.

Des Moines Register Op-ed: "We Need to Overhaul Our Biofuels Policy"

2008-11-03T14:26:43Z

Writing from EWG's office in Ames, IA, Craig Cox, EWG Midwest Vice-President penned the following op-ed in today's Des Moines Register.

Two recent reports in the Register make it clear that we need to overhaul our biofuels policy.
First, Philip Brasher reported that the ethanol industry is lobbying the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure corn ethanol benefits from the 2007 congressional mandate requiring us to use more biofuels. To benefit from the mandate, a biofuel must reduce greenhouse gases by 20 percent compared to using gasoline. The industry wants EPA to ignore the large amounts of greenhouse gases that will be released if new land is plowed under as biofuel production ramps up. If those emissions are counted, corn ethanol likely won't pass the 20 percent reduction test.
Advertisement

Second, Perry Beeman reported that emissions from ethanol plants themselves account for 15 percent of the greenhouse-gas emissions from major sources in Iowa. The 7.6 million metric tons that ethanol plants emit each year are equivalent to emissions from almost 1.4 million cars, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. But emissions from the ethanol plants themselves are just the beginning. Growing the corn needed to supply ethanol plants uses a lot of fossil fuel, and the application of nitrogen fertilizer releases nitrous oxide - a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Scientists are warning that if EPA properly accounts for greenhouse-gas emissions, using corn ethanol may be worse than using gasoline. Moreover, the biofuel mandates and subsidies do nothing to address the increased risk of soil degradation, water pollution and habitat loss as we ramp up production to supply crops for food, feed and fuel.

Iowa and the United States have placed a large bet on corn ethanol. Every gallon of ethanol produced costs federal taxpayers 51 cents in subsidies. That means the 9 billion gallons of ethanol the 2007 energy bill mandates for production this year cost us $5.1 billion in tax breaks to the companies that blend ethanol with gasoline. The Energy Information Agency reported in April 2008 that 79 percent of all federal subsidies for renewable fuels - including solar, wind and geothermal - went to support ethanol production.

Is this the right balance for an energy policy that will move us away from fossil fuels, reduce global warming and protect our environment?

Corn ethanol just can't get us where we need to go. Even if we used all of the corn harvest projected for this year to produce ethanol, we would displace only 15 percent of the gasoline we use each year. Many are hoping that cellulosic biofuels will deliver on ethanol's original promise. Reports from industry and academia tout a dizzying array of different and competing futures for biofuels while skeptics raise red flags about the economics and environmental performance of cellulosic ethanol. Hope may turn out to be hype.

Getting to a renewable-energy future is critical to our state and our country. We need to overhaul our biofuels policies now if we hope that future includes truly sustainable biofuels.

We need to:

- 1. Phase out the mandate to use more corn ethanol.

- 2. Set standards for all biofuels that include protection of soil, water and habitat in addition to greenhouse-gas reductions.

- 3. Let science and market competition devise the best fuels, feed stocks and technologies to achieve those standards.

- 4. Replace the ethanol blender's tax credit with credits to ethanol producers that are achieving environmental-performance standards.

These four actions would create incentives for existing ethanol producers to ramp up their environmental performance and would create public policy that gets us what we need: less dependence on fossil fuels, less global warming and a cleaner environment.

Biofuel Industry Effort to Undermine Global Warming Standards Criticized

2008-10-31T20:35:02Z

From today's joint release with CATF, FOE, and EWG:

Biofuel Industry Effort to Undermine Global Warming Standards Criticized

Environmental groups send letter to EPA calling on it to reject industry’s request and uphold the law

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Environmental groups delivered a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency today calling on it to meet its responsibility under the law and reject a biofuel industry attempt to weaken global warming standards for ethanol.

In the next few days, the EPA is expected to release calculations of greenhouse gas emissions caused by biofuel use. In an attempt to influence these calculations, the biofuel industry recently sent a letter to the EPA asking it to break the law and ignore congressionally mandated guidelines for how such emissions should be calculated. According to the energy bill enacted last December, indirect emissions such as land use change must be included in estimates of total greenhouse gas emissions. Research shows that emissions from land use changes such as deforestation can cause greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels to be twice those of gasoline.

"It's telling that the biofuel industry and its supporters have become so accustomed to government handouts that they took offense when Congress asked for proof that federally subsidized ethanol and biodiesel will reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Jonathan Lewis, an attorney for the Clean Air Task Force. "But research indicates that biofuel production contributes to global warming, and the United States can no longer support biofuels without regard to their environmental impact."

“The EPA must follow the law and account for all greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels,” said Kate McMahon of Friends of the Earth. “The industry’s attempt to pressure the EPA to disregard legally required standards is preposterous. Biofuels are making global warming worse. The EPA must take this into account.”

"We are merely asking the EPA to accurately measure greenhouse gas emissions from every step in biofuel production. In times of tight budgets, taxpayers have the right to know if they are subsidizing fuel that makes the climate crisis worse. EPA should suspend the renewable fuels mandate unless it can clearly demonstrate that biofuels are effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions," said Sandra Schubert, the director of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group.

The groups’ letter can be viewed here.

###

Founded in 1996, the Clean Air Task Force is a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring clean air and healthy environments through scientific research, public education, and legal advocacy. Our unique and singular focus on atmospheric issues has allowed us to go deep on the issues, and be persistent and effective.

EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, DC that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment.

Friends of the Earth (foe.org) is the U.S. voice of the world’s largest grassroots environmental network, with member groups in 70 countries. Since 1969, Friends of the Earth has fought to create a more healthy, just world.

Washington Post: GAO Condems USDA for Failed Approach to Resolving Discrimination Complaints

2008-10-23T16:12:19Z

Darryl Fears writes in today's Washington Post about a recent GAO report leveling harsh criticism on USDA's civil rights efforts.

The report said the credibility of USDA efforts to resolve discrimination complaints "has and continues to be undermined by faulty reporting of data" and that "even such basic information as the number of discrimination complaints is subject to wide variation in . . . reports to the public and Congress."
The USDA's reports about minority participation in farm programs are equally unreliable, the GAO report said. The agency produced three reports to Congress on minority participation between 2003 and 2005, yet the agency did not know precisely the race, ethnicity or gender of the participants because workers relied solely on visual observation to determine ethnic origin.

The USDA's office of civil rights, which has 129 employees and a budget of $24 million, is responsible for handling complaints. But it has limited strategic planning and "does not address key steps needed to achieve its mission," the report said.

This past August, USDA employees organized a lobbying campaign to strip a civil rights provision from the farm bill. That effort resulted in a House Oversight Subcommittee Chairman to call for an independent investigation, by the department's Office of Inspector General (OIG), into potentially illegal lobbying by USDA employees against black farmers.

Read the whole piece here.

Conservationist Tony Dean Dies

2008-10-20T14:09:19Z

We lost a great leader for conservation and for protecting wildlife habitat this weekend as Tony Dean passed away in his hometown of Pierre, South Dakota at the age of 67. At EWG, we're saddened by the news and wish his family well.

Tony was a tireless advocate for conservation issues, a stand he heartily reinforced when he partnered with EWG to fight against the expansion of mining claims in the West and to fight for increased conservation funding from the recently passed farm bill.

He will be missed, a fact underscored by the deluge of testimonials upon the news of his passing.

Tony Dean mattered in South Dakota, for 40 years. Kevin Woster - Rapid City Journal
Dean earned a reputation for standing up for conservation, no matter the financial consequences.
Sioux Falls Argus Leader

Tony was a strong spirit and committed to the outdoors. I always appreciated his advocacy on behalf of conservation and sportsmen alike. He understood the right balance.
Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD)

Tony was one of the most passionate defenders of wildlife habitat and the environment not just in South Dakota but across the country. I, like so many others, benefited from his counsel and advice on a vast range of conservation policy issues.
Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD)

Random Acts of Conservation

2008-10-17T17:40:35Z

“The weaknesses in voluntary programs too often result in random acts of conservation rather than the highly focused acts of conservation needed to solve water quality problems."

The above quote is taken from EWG Vice President Midwest Craig Cox's speech today before the Iowa Environmental Council's Annual Meeting.

Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from agriculture sources flowing from the Mississippi River is devastating the northern Gulf of Mexico and impacting human health, killing fish and limiting recreation along the way. Lack of funding for voluntary conservation programs and inadequate regulations are contributing to this environmental disaster known as the Gulf ‘Dead Zone.’

Mr. Cox focused today on the critical solutions required to mitigate run-off pollution in the Mississippi River Basin. The full text of his speech is after the jump.

Pollution Solutions: Preventing Ag Run-Off
By Craig Cox

Agricultural run-off is causing environmental problems in Iowa waters and as far away as the Gulf of Mexico. Craig Cox, Midwest Vice President of Environmental Working Group, offers some solutions.

Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution flowing from the Mississippi River is devastating the northern Gulf of Mexico and impacting human health, killing fish and limiting recreation along the way. Each summer, this pollution causes a “Dead Zone” to form in the Gulf where too little oxygen is present to support sea life. Since 1985, when regular measurements were first taken of the dead zone, it has continued to grow. This year, it grew to 8,000 square miles, its second largest measurement to date.1

Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey reported in February 2008 that agricultural sources account for 70 percent of the nitrogen and phosphorus delivered to the Dead Zone. They found that just nine states—including Iowa—contribute 75 percent of nitrogen and phosphorus. These nine states account for only about one-third of the Mississippi drainage area yet are the source of three-quarters of the nutrients, mostly from agriculture.2

The Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico may seem far away from where we live in Iowa, but the nitrogen and phosphorus pollution that cause the Dead Zone in the Gulf also cause serious problems in Iowa waters, including frequent algae blooms, low oxygen levels and threats to drinking water. Iowa rivers and lakes have some of the highest nitrogen and phosphorus pollution levels when compared to other regions of the country and the world. Our state list of impaired waters identifies nitrogen and phosphorus pollution as a cause of the impairment for 32 lakes and 33 river segments in the state.3

Seeking solutions to stem our agricultural pollution will help our neighbors downstream and improve water quality here at home.

Scientists and conservationists in Iowa—and across the nation—who study the problem have recommended that a three-pronged approach be taken. First we need to keep the soil in place and build its capacity to hold onto nutrients and water. Second, farmers and ranchers need to better manage nitrogen and phosphorus applied to agricultural fields in fertilizers and manures. Management plans must ensure that most of that nitrogen and phosphorus stays in soil or gets taken up by crops, rather than running off or leaching into lakes, rivers, streams and groundwater. Finally, we need to increase the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that is captured in wetlands, filter strips, riparian zones and in stream channels themselves.

There are proven conservation practices and systems that address the recommendations outlined above,4 but not enough farmers employ them. To encourage their use, we rely almost exclusively on voluntary, federally- and state-funded conservation programs. Program improvements are needed. The most important improvements we can make to voluntary programs are:
• Increase accountability by setting explicit goals and timelines and ensuring full transparency regarding where taxpayers money is going and for what practices and systems.
• Focus most efforts in priority watersheds and work with groups of producers to take joint actions to solve pressing problems; even heroic efforts by award winning farmers will produce poor results if producers aren’t working together.
• Target conservation within priority watersheds where it will do the most good to improve water quality; often only a small portion of the agricultural land in a watershed is responsible for much or most of the sediment and nutrient problems.
• Collect and disseminate conservation information we need to direct our programs effectively; we don’t have the information we need to tell us what conservation practices are already in place on the landscape and how those practices are changing in response to market conditions and public policies such as biofuel subsidies and mandates.
• Build the technical services and scientific support network needed to get the job done.

If we take concerted action to accomplish the five objectives outlined above, we will see more results, more quickly.

But even the most focused and best managed voluntary programs will not be sufficient to solve the water quality problems associated with agricultural production in Iowa. In part this is because of money. Given the financial and budget problems we are facing as a state and nation it is folly to think that massive increases in funding for voluntary programs will come our way.

Most significant, however, are the inherent weaknesses of voluntary programs to improve water quality:
• Producers who volunteer are often not the ones causing the most damage.
• Producers’ priorities dominate especially if they are picking up part of the tab; producer priorities may be different than conservation program priorities.
• Designing programs that provide equal opportunity for all producers to participate becomes more important to legislators than designing programs that wisely direct scarce funding to producers actually causing water pollution problems.

The weaknesses in voluntary programs too often result in random acts of conservation rather than the highly focused acts of conservation needed to solve water quality problems.

Innovative regulatory frameworks can and should be devised. The Conservation Compliance provisions of the 1985 Farm Bill are the best current examples of “regulatory” framework that has produced real results: historic reductions in soil erosion across the United States. However, it is important to note that lack of enforcement by states has stalled further progress.

Regulatory frameworks should be devised primarily to drive producers, who are causing pollution, into voluntary programs. For example, a minimal setback of agricultural activities from waterbodies on hydrologically-sensitive land would create an incentive for polluting producers to enroll certain tracks of land in the continuous Conservation Reserve Program, where they can get paid to do what they otherwise would be required to do.

Rather than requiring all producers to have nutrient management plans, why not begin to phase out, through regulation, particularly risky practices, such as fall application of nitrogen or spreading of manure on frozen ground?

Finally, instead of command-and-control regulations applied to individual farmers, why couldn’t we enter into performance agreements with groups of producers in small, impaired watersheds? Producers, organized through a producer group, conservation district, or drainage district, would work together to achieve explicit and measurable reductions in water pollution by some specified date. The producers themselves would come up with the plan for getting the job done and be responsible for working together to get the practices in place. Financial help could be provided up front to get things going, but failure to meet the target reductions would result in more restrictive measures.

It is time to get serious about developing regulatory programs that work—frameworks that make sense in agricultural settings and which producers can work with. These examples are a long way from fully fleshed-out proposals. But they do offer possibilities for strengthening and building on our current, voluntary programs.

Chesapeake Bay and Mississippi River Basin Among Potential Big Losers in Conservation Cuts

2008-09-22T19:52:09Z

Today, the Environmental Working Group released a follow up report to Congress Poised To Cut Conservation Funds That Aided Farm Bill’s Passage that details the proposed conservation program cuts on a state-by-state basis.

The initial report released from the EWG Midwest office in Ames, IA describes the bait and switch tactics used by Democratic lawmakers working behind the scenes to cut the very conservation increases that helped pass the subsidy laden farm bill. After the farm bill vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi boasted that the farm bill would represent “historic new investments” in programs to protect water quality and wildlife.

The new EWG State-by-State analysis shows that 14 states are poised to lose more than $6 million each from the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) alone. Chesapeake Bay states will lose over $16 million (EQIP), while key Mississippi River Basin states; major contributors to the Gulf ‘Dead Zone’, are set to see cuts near $48 million (EQIP).

In addition, the Congress Poised To Cut Conservation Funds That Aided Farm Bill’s Passage report spurred the Des Moines Register editorial page, in the heart of subsidized corn country, to summarize:

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin has worked hard to build environmental and soil-conservation measures into the farm bill, so it's sort of odd when his own party comes along and strips them out. This is especially troubling at a time of high commodity prices, when farmers have every incentive to plow and plant every available acre, whether it is environmentally wise or not. Now is the time for Congress to increase incentives for conservation to protect farmland, not reduce them.

Reaction to the EWG conservation cuts report has some in Congress claiming that increases in food prices have forced them to cut conservation programs in favor of nutrition programs with strained budgets. Yet the $5 billion per year in automatic “fixed-direct” taxpayer funded subsidies to wealthy farm operations at times of record crop prices and record farm incomes are off the table for cuts.

“EWG has a long history of steadfast support of domestic nutrition programs. Congress should have added the disclaimer ‘unless we can afford it’ to their promised increases in conservation and nutrition funding that greased the wheels for the bloated farm bill’s passage,” said Craig Cox, EWG Midwest Vice President and author of both reports.

“Congressional leadership has the power to keep the promises they made to increase conservation and nutrition funding,” Cox concluded.

Click here for the state-by-state analysis.

The Whiskey Burns

2008-09-10T15:45:23Z

Dan Owens may have stopped writing at the Blog for Rural Affairs, but his new effort, Whiskey Burn, maintains his insightful and often incendiary thoughts on agriculture policy. This post on pending conservation cuts is a must read for anyone concerned about the bait and switch tactics Congress has employed with conservation funding in favor of billions in unfettered dollars to commodity programs.

If we saw even the slightest hint of cutting farm program payments, the vaunted commodity machine would swing into action. There would be no end of press releases, news stories, DC visits, and other strategies mobilized to defeat any potential cut. (Not only that, but anytime the temperature gets above 90 or it doesn’t rain for more than 10 days straight, that machine cranks up, demanding “disaster” assistance. Sometimes I think they do it just to keep the “machine” well oiled. More likely, they’re just laying the groundwork for future greed). Yet time and again, conservation (and other things we care about) get the shaft, and no more than a peep or two is heard from the sustainable agriculture community. What’s going on?

Read the whole post here.

And it should be noted that Brian Depew and CFRA newcomer Steph Larsen are ably filling the void left by Dan's absence.

Report Release: Congress Poised to Cut Conservation Funds That Aided Farm Bill’s Passage

2008-09-09T20:30:37Z

From today's EWG report release:

More Than 40,000 Farmers Denied Funds to Reduce Pollution From Their Farms

WASHINGTON – September 9, 2008. Behind the thin green gloss Congressional leaders spread across the subsidy-laden 2008 farm bill, the Democratic Congress is now hacking away at pledges to expand conservation and other environmental programs.

Data analyzed by the Environmental Working Group show that Congress is trying to roll back funding increases in critical conservation and environmental programs, funding pledged in the farm law passed just weeks ago.

Today, Craig Cox, EWG Midwest Vice-President, released the report: Congress Poised to Cut Conservation Funds that Aided Farm Bill’s Passage, from EWG’s new Midwest office in Ames, IA.

When the farm bill became law on June 18, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi boasted that it would represent “historic new investments” in programs to protect water quality and wildlife. Those investments helped mute the opposition of many in Congress and some interest groups, who objected to the bill’s continuation of hefty subsidies to large, wealthy farm operators now earning record incomes in the ongoing commodity boom.

But within weeks of the farm bill’s passage, the Senate appropriations committee sent to the Senate floor a spending bill (S.3289) that would slash conservation measures by $331 million in fiscal year 2009.

Commodity subsidies that provide billions to the richest farmers each year remained untouched.

For every $10,000 in crop subsidies Congress sends to the most heavily polluting counties in the Corn Belt, just one dollar is spent on conservation. In the 124 counties that cause 40% of spring nitrate fertilizer pollution, the ratio between subsidies and conservation spending is 500 to one.

“With cuts like this year after year, it’s no wonder that agriculture is the number one source of water pollution in the nation. Democrats in Congress are using bait and switch tactics with conservation funding. This practice mirrors a longstanding Republican tradition of broken promises where pledges to increase money for environmental programs are followed by systematic and dramatic cuts that have left conservation programs billions short over the past decade,” said Craig Cox, EWG Midwest Vice-President.

Go to http://www.ewg.org/reports/conservationcuts for the full report.

# # #

We Need to Protect More Land, Not Less

2008-07-03T15:27:12Z

EWG Executive Director Richard Wiles penned this op-ed in today's St. Louis Post Dispatch. The piece is in response to a recent editorial calling for land to be pulled out from the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), and placed into production.

While the benefit to taxpayers from CRP includes critical elements like creating wildlife habitat, protecting water quality, and defending against agriculture run-off and pollution that greatly contribute to environmental disasters like the Gulf of Mexico 'Dead Zone', there is a major point in the piece that should weigh heavily with those advocating for these lands to be plowed under.

Every year, the land in the CRP provides greenhouse gas reductions equal to taking 11 million cars off the road, based on U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates.

Read the whole op-ed after the jump.

We need to protect more land, not less
By Richard Wiles

07/03/2008

A recent Post-Dispatch editorial called for plowing up portions of the nation's premier farmland protection initiative, the Conservation Reserve Program, in hopes that planting corn on highly erodible lands will ease pressure on corn markets and lower prices of food and animal feed.

This might sound like good policy, but it will not work. Plowing up the land in the CRP will do nothing to lower food or feed prices, but it will flush billions of dollars of conservation progress down the Mississippi and very likely aggravate global warming.

There are few better investments of taxpayer dollars than the land reserve project, which has protected millions of acres of sensitive lands nationwide and significantly reduced soil erosion, all the while costing taxpayers about one tenth as much as traditional farm subsidies. And unlike most farm subsidies — which concentrate wealth in the hands of the wealthy — this program spreads the money around and creates more economic value than it costs.

The value of the Conservation Reserve Program in reduced water pollution and soil erosion alone is about $5 billion per year, according to a University of Minnesota study. On top of that, conserving these lands has generated billions in increased hunting revenues each year, not to mention resurrecting the central migratory flyway and the Prairie Pothole ecosystem and protecting at least 1.8 million acres of critical streamside habitat. Many Midwestern towns probably would be at even greater risk from flood waters without the protections of lands currently in the CRP.

We could consider sacrificing portions of the CRP if there were any evidence that it might lower food prices for the poor or help us fight global warming. But opening up these lands for argricultural use would do neither.

First, it is too late in the season to realize significant yields on any corn planted this year. And even over the long haul, there is no reason to believe that corn planted on these acres would yield enough to have any impact on food or feed prices, given surging global demand and the overzealous congressional ethanol mandate that, if unchanged, could divert up to half of all corn to ethanol production over the next several years.

On top of that, the environmental effects could extend well beyond soil erosion, habitat destruction and tons of fertilizers added to rivers and drinking-water supplies; converting land now in the Conservation Reserve Program to corn production could be a huge step backward in the effort to slow global warming.

How? Every year, the land in the CRP provides greenhouse gas reductions equal to taking 11 million cars off the road, based on U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates. Plowing up the CRP would end that benefit. In addition, it would release carbon dioxide now stored in the soil into the atmosphere, with devastating effects.

If anything, we should make it a priority to expand and protect the CRP as a part of an energy and environmental policy that tries to maximize the economic and environmental return on every taxpayer dollar spent.

We understand that some in the food industry are concerned about the skyrocketing prices of corn. But, to take one example, the reason chicken feed prices are so high is that more than a third of this year's corn crop is destined for our fuel tanks in the form of ethanol. Add weather-induced worries about corn shortages and surging global demand, and feed prices are being pushed to record highs.

America needs a real energy policy focused on higher mileage standards, conservation and clean-energy solutions such as solar and wind, not an ill-conceived ethanol bender that pits food against fuel with few benefits for anyone.

Richard Wiles is co-founder and executive director of the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based non-profit advocacy group that focuses on issues involving the environment and public health.

America's Food-to-Fuel Gamble

2008-06-17T18:47:16Z

Yesterday EWG released Biofuels and Bad Weather: America’s Food-to-Fuel Gamble.

Several media outlets have reported on the release including:

LA Times: Midwest Flood May Cover Nation In Higher Food Prices

"Our ethanol policy requires perfect weather, and not surprisingly, we aren't getting it," said Michelle Perez, senior agriculture analyst with the Environmental Working Group in Washington.

Reuters: Bad Spring Shows US Ethanol Plan Dangerous

In a report, the Environmental Working Group said demand for corn was rising more rapidly than crop output. The result, it said, is higher prices for food and fuel.

Seattle PI: Record Flooding and Other Severe Weather Will Likely Send Food and Fuel Prices Even Higher This Summer.

When the Bush administration and Congress triggered the ethanol boom in 2005 with the Renewable Fuels Standard mandate and then raised the mandate five-fold in 2007, they ignored the impact this policy could have on food prices, relying entirely on good weather to make this roll-of-the dice decision a success.

The full news release for Biofuels and Bad Weather: America’s Food-Fuel Gamble is after the jump.

Biofuels and Bad Weather: America’s Food-Fuel Gamble

It’s Time for Congress to Revisit the Ethanol Mandate

Record Flooding and Possible Summer Drought Will Likely Send Food and Fuel Prices Even Higher

WASHINGTON – With relentless rains, cold temperatures, and record floods pounding the Midwest, the nation’s ill-conceived corn ethanol mandate appears headed into a perfect storm is helping to push food and feed prices to record highs, while doing nothing to put a dent in soaring prices at the pump. This was the conclusion by analysts at Environmental Working Group (EWG) after extensive interviews with top agriculture economists and climatologists.

In Iowa, 1.13 million acres of corn, nearly ten percent of the state’s total, already have been lost, and 4 million more are currently underwater. Across the Midwest millions more acres are likely to suffer significant yield loss because fields have been too wet to plant or are too wet to apply fertilizer or control weeds. Corn futures surged toward $8 per bushel in Chicago in response to what many are calling the worst flooding since 1993, when the corn crop was cut by 24 percent.

When the Bush administration and Congress triggered the ethanol boom in 2005 with the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) mandate and then raised the mandate five-fold in 2007, they ignored the impact this policy could have on food prices, relying entirely on good weather to make this roll-of-the dice decision a success.

“Our ethanol policy requires perfect weather, and not surprisingly, we aren’t getting it,” said EWG Senior Agriculture Analyst Michelle Perez.

In fact, EWG President Ken Cook in a speech in early April of this year at the Informa Economics Conference questioned the federal government’s ‘good weather’ policy.

“Assurances from the industry in the past months have not eased the rhetoric from the anti-ethanol lobby, however. In early April, Environmental Working Group Founder Ken Cook laid down the gauntlet and said the government’s policy to ensure an adequate food supply this year was to “hope for good weather.” Ethanol opponents, led by the EWG, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, , and livestock and poultry groups have ensured the debate is front and center in the news media this spring. The debate will likely intensify through the summer as the assessment of crop losses is realized,”
Top Producer Magazine, June 16, 2008

The rush to support corn ethanol via the ethanol mandate from Congress and the Bush Administration was so enthusiastic that even the experts were caught off guard by the size of the farm price increases this year.

Keith Collins, the former top economist at USDA for 15 years, during an EWG-sponsored call with reporters late last month, said, “We did not anticipate these soaring prices. No one forecasted $5.50 to $6.30 per bushel corn prices. We were in the $3.70 per bushel range.” Corn prices closed at $7.91 per bushel on Friday the 13th of June, 2008.

Last year, thanks to the RFS mandate, twenty percent of the U.S. corn supply was diverted into our fuel tanks. This figure is expected to rise to 30 percent for 2008. Ethanol and other food-crop based biofuels (like sugar cane, soybeans, canola oil, and palm oil) are a major new demand for cropland worldwide that would otherwise be growing food. Estimates for how much of the global rise in food prices is due to worldwide biofuels demand ranges from 10 to 30 percent.

“EWG is not saying the biofuels are the only cause of higher food prices. But our ethanol policy is a key factor in higher food prices that we can control since we can’t control the weather or global food and fuel demand,” said Perez. “Congress must immediately revisit the ethanol mandate to reduce the nightmare trifecta of feed, food and fuel prices at record highs just seven months after the mandate was put in place,” added Perez.

For climatologists and agricultural economists, the hope is that the current cold and wet weather conditions that have delayed corn planting and interfered with crop emergence do not continue. Unfortunately, comparisons between this year’s weather events and two historic weather disasters are already occurring. The 1988 drought and the 1993 Mid-West floods reduced corn production by 28 and 24 percent, respectively.

“The whole corn crop boils down to what Iowa and Illinois will do…. If you have any problem with those two states, the market will explode…It’s going to take extraordinary circumstances to get through this year without major interruptions in corn production… We’ve got a mess on our hands,” added Al Dutcher, a state climatologist for the University of Nebraska, in response to questions about the possible impacts of the excess water weather disturbances.

EWG’S complete analysis, Biofuels and Bad Weather: America’s Food-Fuel Gamble, can be found at the following link. http://www.ewg.org/report/biofuelsandbadweather

EPA Offers “Inaction” Plan to Solve ‘Dead Zone’ Disaster

2008-06-17T18:38:31Z

From yesterday's EWG news release:

WASHINGTON, June 16 – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released today an action plan that will do little to slow the growth of the oxygen-starved ocean ‘Dead Zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico, says three members of the Mississippi River Water Quality Collaborative. Recent studies place the size of this year’s Dead Zone at a record setting – 22,000 square kilometers (10,000 square miles) – an area roughly equivalent to the size of Massachusetts.

This Spring and early Summer, flooding in states along the Mississippi River has inundated farm fields and swept away others, likely increasing the amount of fertilizer nutrient pollution that will contaminate state waters and the Gulf of Mexico, expanding the size of the Dead Zone and exacerbating efforts to reduce it. According to the US Geological Society, pollution from agricultural fields in just nine states – specifically fertilizer and manure run-off from corn and soybean crops - is the leading cause of hypoxia in the Mississippi River Basin and the Gulf of Mexico.

“We can mitigate this environmental disaster, but the EPA’s ‘inaction plan’ ensures that we continue to muddle along for yet another five years, which is completely unacceptable,” said Matt Rota, Water Resources Program Director for the Gulf Restoration Network, based in New Orleans. “Most of the 11 “action steps” in this report do not have due dates and none of them have either nitrogen and phosphorus loading reduction goals or ‘Dead Zone’ size reduction goals. If there are no real goals or due dates, how will progress towards successful actions be measured?” Rota asked.

“EPA Task Force members acknowledge that the current voluntary, cost-share approach to solving farm pollution is failing, yet the Task Force fails to change it’s approach,” said Susan Heathcote, Water Program Director for the Iowa Environmental Council. “The Task Force should have adopted minimum environmental performance standards for agriculture in the nine critical Basin states and should have committed to targeting farm conservation funds to the highest priority locations and the practices that achieve the most cost-effective nutrient reductions,” Heathcote said.

“Without a real plan that set goals and mandates action to achieve comprehensive pollution reduction across the Basin, irreversible damage to the ecosystem will be the legacy of the EPA in the Gulf,” said Michelle Perez, senior analyst with the Environmental Working Group. “Only with a targeted action plan can the public ensure that their taxpayer subsidies for ethanol production are not causing environmental disasters and their subsidies for farm conservation practices are achieving the greatest nutrient reductions for the buck,” Perez concluded.

The EPA Task Force ignores it’s own Science Advisory Board’s recommendation that they adopt a 40-percent nutrient reduction goal for the Basin. This policy is a critical first step to ensuring the Task Force can achieve the goal of reducing the size of the Dead Zone to 5,000 square kilometers. Instead, the Task Force suggests that the states finalize separate and uncoordinated nutrient reduction strategies by the time the next Task Force convenes – in 2013.

# # #

The Mississippi River Water Quality Collaborative is comprised of environmental organizations from states bordering the Mississippi River as well as regional and national groups that work on Mississippi River issues. The purpose of the Collaborative is to harness the resources and expertise of diverse organizations to reduce all types of pollution entering the river.