[Spridgets] Re A (sad) tale of ethanol???

[Jim Johnson]

Good on ya, Mate.  I live in Dodge City Kansas where if farming disappeared
tomorrow so would our city (wheat, corn & meat).  However, this intimate
contact with the farm community allows me to see what PIK and other
subsidies have done. There are farmers out here who basically quit farming
years ago when they found that playing the government subsidy game was far
less work than actually growing much of anything. Not only less work, but
higher paying!!  AND, in the case of corn, they are sucking up the last of
our most significant natural resource, water.

We rely on the Ogallala Aquifer for water. Once the government accelerated
the ethanol fiasco, all these farmers turned to growing irrigated corn - not
as feed, but as a cash crop for the ethanol plants. Fine, you say?  What if
it takes more water than you were thinking to make corn based ethanol?

A study, published in the journal - Environmental Science and Technology and
the University of Minnesota found that as corn-based ethanol production
approximately doubled nationwide between 2005 and 2008, related water use
more than tripled. Since then it has continued to rise dramatically. In the
past several years, the water level in the aquifer here (where we grow most
of the nation's wheat and feed and raise most of its cattle) is dropping at
an alarming rate and many wells are going dry leaving the land a desert not
even capable of watering cattle.

In short, corn based ethanol as pushed by the EPA is driving up the cost of
all foods, not just corn, while also depleting the aquifers at a staggering
rate. When that water is gone, it will take centuries to replenish and over
those centuries many people all over the world will starve to death for lack
of food.

If you believe the EPA knew what it was doing, then you are naive. If EPA
believed it knew what it was doing then the law of unintended consequences
reins supreme.

Cheers!!
Jim  Vote democratic if you want more great government in your life.

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:37 AM, Kurt Appley <kmappley at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jim: I too am against subsidy's. Sooooo---lets stop the subsidy's to big
> oil
> and the big electric power company's as well.
>  As mentioned, there are none of us left so they have really done there job
> haven't they. Government statistics put someone who grows tomato's in
> window
> boxes on high rises in NY on the census list as a farmer. We actually
> believe there are only 200K farmers that derive there entire income from
> agriculture left. Look around the world at country's that don't subsidise
> there farmers and you will see the most efficient farming practice.
> Subsistence farming! People in this country eat for less than 6% of there
> disposable income, I believe, and we get less 20% of that. A box of
> breakfast cereal costs  more for the box  than the company paid for what is
> in it!!
> Kurt.
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-- 
Cheers!!
Jim Johnson
Don't miss the BIG PARTY!!  Midget 50th Anniversary!
Elkhart Lake, WI  July 18-22, 2011
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