Here is a video of Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin quizzing oil executives about fuel prices. I take it this is from late March or early April. I found the video here, and the post is dated April 3. If you skip to about minute 3:40, you get Herseth-Sandlin asking the executives if they know of any "independent studies" linking subsidies for bio-fuels to an increase in food prices.
The oil execs didn't have much of an answer, but I do. I have posted these before. From the May/June 2007 edition of Foreign Affairs, University of Minnesota agricultural economists C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer wrote "How Biofuels Could Starve The Poor." Rep. Herseth-Sandlin asks if the executives know how much ethanol is pushing up the price of food. We know that, too.
Ethanol is to blame for some of the increase in the price of corn to $6 a bushel from $2 a bushel two years ago, according to a new study by University of Wisconsin agribusiness professor Randy Fortenberry and graduate student Hwanil Park.
The study looked at the rise in corn prices paid to farmers from September 2006 to December 2007. It found that 31 percent of the total price increase was related to ethanol production. The remainder was linked to a combination of other factors - increased demand for food from developing countries, the shrinking value of the dollar and commodities speculators.
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