Calling out the "Free Corn Coalition"

National Corn Growers Association president Martin Barbre has called out ethanol opponents in the livestock and poultry sector for recently signing a letter supporting EPA’s proposed cuts to the Renewable Fuel Standard. Barbre writes:

It is one thing to complain about the price of corn when it is $8 per bushel, as it came close to doing in the late summer of 2012, when the drought reduced the corn supply by four billion bushels. Now, with corn nearly half that price, livestock and poultry producers are still complaining and singling out ethanol. The fact is, there are a lot of people who want corn to be priced around its historic, if unsustainable, two bucks a bushel. We’re sure they’d even prefer it to be free, and so we call them the Free Corn Coalition.

Barbre goes on to cover how livestock and poultry critics greatly exaggerate how much corn is converted to ethanol, and how the heavily consolidated livestock and poultry industries are raking in record profits. Be sure to read Barbre’s entire piece. It is more than worth your time.

The “Free Corn Coalition” needs to understand that when one sector of agriculture attacks another, everyone loses. Ethanol gives all of agriculture a boost while also leading to job creation and economic activity in our rural communities.