Media Attacks Ethanol, Family Farmers, & Corn Futures

By LM Lupo, CKO

The media has taken up the scepter of forming public opinion rather than informing the public, particularly as it relates to the ethanol market, and the corn futures market.  Story after story published by journalists funded by the oil industry and the factory farming industry continues to throng readers with misleading information, which is our euphemism for a blatant disregard for factual reporting.

We've tracked down several of the authors and media including  Dow Jones, Forbes, Consumer Reports, and CNN Business 2.0, to get clarification for obvious errors.  We did not get a response despite the multi-week deadline. 

Ethanol production is essentially a commodity input and output business.  This report covers the ethanol input side of the equation, with our oil report and ethanol output findings following later this week.

From CNN Business 2.0

Most of us know that CNN Business was designed with the 8th grade reader in mind, but we did not know that CNN used 8th grade economic papers for article research and reference.  Either that, or they are being paid a Judas Iscariot 30 silver sum to state the following:

"Consumers will feel the impact of higher corn prices, not just in the produce isle but in a range of products. Beef and poultry prices are likely to rise as animal farmers rely on corn for feed."

Ethanol uses #2 grade feed corn, not high grade produce corn.  There will be little impact to produce prices, unless the middle brokers jack up prices based on foolish market perceptions--something the oil industry adroitly performs at seemingly every national disaster, at least according to Congressional testimony.

The #2 grade feed corn for ethanol is the product traded at the Chicago Board of Trade, and shipped overseas as well.  All of those crops that appear to die in the field from neglect on your local country road--a city dwellers perspective--are nothing more than the #2 grade corn drying in the field for future processing and sale.  A significant difference from the fresh corn consumers eat.

CNN's Business 2.0 8th Grade Report Continues

The article states the following:  "Beef and poultry prices are likely to rise as animal farmers rely on corn for feed".  First of all, the sentence should read "big business factory farming" rather than animal farming.  Second, just the opposite happens, factory farmers sell their livestock rather than suffer losses and hence consumers will see lower beef and poultry prices due to the flood of product hitting the shelves. 

Don't take our word for it, go to the the Chicago Board of Trade and chart livestock prices over grains and clearly one will see a negative price correlation during market extremes, which we are rapidly approaching.  We also present the following graphics below, apparently the journalists at CNN Business skipped their social studies classes on basic chart reading.  Historically, rising corn prices cause lower meat prices, but we'll let the reader decide.

Let's probe a little deeper with the media's new concern (paid for journalism) for the beef and poultry industry and allegedly higher consumer corn prices.

Warning:  Here comes another paid sponsored article with more journalist misinformation, this time from Dow Jones Market Watch.

"Four dollars a bushel causes a lot of pain," said Richard Lobb, a spokesman for the National Chicken Council, who estimated that the price rise has already bumped up wholesale chicken prices 6 cents per pound. "It ripples right across the economy."

Whose economy?  The factory farming economy, of course, not the real family farmer.  This is the same economy that states bird flu is dangerous in live chickens but dead chickens with infected meat are safe to eat...if you cook it long enough.   Any takers for free bird flu infected meat cooked at safe temperatures?  We did not think so.

Factory Farming Versus Family Farming

The factory farmers have even argued for consumption of bio-secure concentration camp chicken over free range chickens, see our report here, where the industry fails freshman logic 101 and now concludes, 'thus, all chickens are safe Socrates'.

Those that operate family farms with free rangers and grass/hay fed livestock barely notice the rise in corn prices. Why?   Ruminants (cattle, sheep) and even chickens were not designed to be fattened on corn anyway.  Corn used as a primary feed is almost entirely factory based farming, think here of Tyson, Hormel, and the now infamous Bernard Matthews found to be not only economical with living quarters for their poultry, but the truth as well.

Clearly, the factory farming funded media is trying very hard to talk down the corn market and bash ethanol with every journalist for sale imaginable.

Let's see what Mr. Market has to say...

Next

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