Iowa politicians of both parties, including Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig (Cedar Rapids Gazette, February 12, 2022), are clamoring for federal government approval of year-round E15 blended gasoline.
Just musing here. Theoretically, if Iowa's biggest crop were tobacco, would a lot of Iowa's elected officials be declaring that all patriotic and noble-farmer-admiring Iowans (or heck, all Americans) should smoke? At least a little?
Also, I'd be amazed if at least some of that land converted to corn in those other states weren't environmentally sensitive and/or grassland/pasture. North American grassland bird populations are falling faster than those of any other bird group on the continent. And of course in some regions of some states, there is the irrigation/aquifer issue.
In Illinois, almost all of the grassland is gone - a small percentage is around in old CRP contracts that have been extended. What seems to be 'going' every day around here is trees. Bottomland forests, windbreaks, upland forests on marginal ground that shouldn't be farmed. It is common to find a big track hoe parked next to a windbreak or small woodland one day, and a big pile ready for the diesel fuel, old tires, and a match the next.
But yes - any remaining grasslands are also disappearing with the few small farmers that still had a few cattle. Old CRP contracts that have expired, either in grasslands/forbs or trees, are also being "converted". Maybe "perverted" is a better word.
Let's remember that everyone in america knows smoking is bad and that it does cause cancer. We're at the early stage that tobacco was when it was telling everybody nothing to see here folks , oh , look over there , there's an acorn.
In a future (hopefully) America that is headed by an administration that believes in climate change, corn for ethanol will be the first to go. As our growing zones move further north everyone here in Iowa can tell you we're able to grow things here earlier and even later into the season because of climate change. Corn is an accelerator of climate change. At least the way that we are utilizing it. And it's crazy that I have to defend fossil fuel because since I worked at Greenpeace years and years ago I've been railing against it. 😆 but it bears repeating.... two dirty fuels are not better than one.
We absolutely need to be growing food for humans, not corn for ethanol.
I read many many yrs ago the wheat belt would move North into Iowa and corn belt N into Mn and Canada because of lack of moisture needed for yellow corn. Be more of a wheat/SB. I'm wondering if we're seeing the earlier the last few yrs and now. Earlier to beat the heat for pollination time and time of rains. Of course we didn't know how the advancement in plant breeding for drought resistant traits would come into play but it has and will continue. Also look at the way bigger corn yields and being raised in like Dakotas and Canada with the progress in breeding has increased. Also a man on custom harvesting run into Montana shows corn with good yields there with new hybrids as well as the use of crop protection products, commercial fertilizer. Thousands upon thousands of potential acres in 'the big sky' country. We grow corn for export to help offset all the foreign made goods(instead of made in America) Americans like to consume, we grow yellow corn to grow human food more efficiently and faster, like beef, pork, chicken, turkey, we make ethanol from the starch and use the by-product, DDG's and corn gluten, to replace some corn and SB meal in livestock to make a cheaper diet but just as nutritious and as efficient. It just amazes me how many people have no comprehension of all this but think they know so much, but I've spent y life out here in the trenches.
One thing to always remember crop farmers are very very good at what they do and we always have to try to raise more than our competitors in the business, which is other producers!!!
Imagine some of those acres filled with solar panels, sheep, goats even pigs wandering underneath, organic grass fed. Raise the panels a little, increase spacing and the whole dynamic changes for other fruits and vegetables. Changing the thinking around these issues is paramount, farmers who only know corn and soybeans, chemicals and tiling may be able to be influenced when the alternative to what they know is fiscally rewarding. Getting there is the issue.
I'm really interested in food grade hemp. It is a huge market and only growing. And with cannabis , you can get 2-3 batches per year. I'm less interested in medicinal or even personal use of t h c. That's a market that is over there and different. Food grade hemp would also help regenerate our soil.
It is so interesting to read so many comments often from people that have such an idealistic picture of farming and families that it bears no relation to the reality!!
How much income is derived from tobacco today vs USA historically? That was a difficult transition I bet. But maybe we really can't figure out hard things.
I'm sorry Chris but you left out all the jobs in health care that would be lost without ethanol. High paying jobs in the medical sector in the area of cardio vascular, pulmonary, and cancer along with all the support and research would no longer be needed. The economic vitality of Iowa would be decimated if agriculture pollution was curtailed. What are you thinking Chris?
Chris thanks for this. I’m struck by how expensive groceries are in the cities in Iowa and how unavailable they are in the small towns, despite sitting on the most fertile land on earth. I wonder if you could do an analysis about how if we converted the land to edible foods (if that’s feasible) what that might do for the cost of feeding people in Iowa.
I suspect that if we want to save farming that we may need to break up those farms-for-industry into family sized parcels where families can grow more of their own food, including meat. Empty a few cities, which are an ecological disaster worse than a farm with depleted soil.
I nodded vociferously at the first sentence and I found the second to be a real head scratcher.. how on earth would you manage that? Forcibly relocate people?
I would want to make them cheap enough to own! It’s supply and demand, I think. We have states with growth management laws that jam people into cities. Those laws prevent those farms from being broken up into family sized parcels. The gold standard for a young family ought to be a home on no less than 1/3 of an acre. All of the building code requirements that need to be met drive up the price of a house.
Conversely, it’s the people who are jammed into cities who depend on the grocery stores with those bags of frozen food and veggies produced by one crop farms with large processing plants nearby. Food service for restaurants, school and hospital cafeterias, and senior living facilities also depend on those bags of food from 1-crop farms.
Ur idea is on the order communism platform. Ur idea sounds a little like serfdom to me. How would it be decided and 'by whom?' size of parcel to support family and in what ag area as it so different. I must laugh if u think that city people survive very long on this idea?
Parcels sold on the free market for family ownership is somehow communist serfdom? I want these people to be self-sufficient. What do you call housing prices so high and building policies that allow only apartments, requiring people to be dependent on landlords and city infrastructure? I have great confidence in the average human being to figure out how to own and maintain some property.
What I meant these acreages trying to raise own food could require extreme sacrifice. Soooo...., r u just going to TAKE the land from the owner? Also if the property has been in family for 3, 4 generations they usually don't want to sell off and sure not give it away like I would guess u wouldn't on ur home. Maybe the owner spent 40 yrs paying for it, and it's retirement income. In my area: Leach fields for septic system for a house in country is about $15,000, a well can be $8,000 to $15,000, very expensive to get electrical power brought in to each house plus monthly charge, of course property ins which has gone up drastically, don't forget property taxes where high percentage goes to schools. Property taxes are one of the 1st places that are gone after for programs, a house could be several thousand $$ for property taxes. The cost of the house is dependent on what these people think they need or deserve. A 1/3 A is 14,520 sq feet.
Raise own food? So do they buy a hog to have custom butchered, my last over $300. Maybe they know how to kill, skin, eviscerate and process. Still must freeze or can with pressure cooker (which can be very dangerous). If going to secure a young pig and feed for 5-6 months (if feed grain), where will feed come from and what price. If decide to do a beef they will get into some big money and bigger freezer (not cheap to run or buy) If want to raise own veg, great, I was raised that way. We all spent eves in garden, mom spent days canning and freezing such. Can have chickens for eggs and to eat. Must have feed for them, these days buy some terminal meat baby's and so many for to be layers. Of course these people will need facilities for all this food want to raise for themselves. Also remember animals sometimes die and then ur really out.
Ur idea has possibilities just maybe not very practical in many ways.
Doesn't have to be near 'state of the art' by a country mile, it's just what it costs. I suppose u can live in most any dwelling u want, unless there are children there, but the rest is pretty much so. Just reality.
Pretty much so, Even the amish families are not able to survive on their small farms today, are doing lots of off farm work for income. Many as carpenters, farmers mkts, road side stands, large gardens to deliver large quantities to auctions, etc.
It’s actually getting harder to find non-ethanol gas. I have been buying gas at a big-box store. When I asked the attendant what the new stickers meant, she assured me (old person) all about the advantages of ethanol and stated the company was following Iowa Law.
I put gasohol in my car for years, thinking I was doing a good thing for the environment. I drive my cars FOREVER. When I got a better/newer car 15 months ago, I asked my friendly, local repairman what kind of gas I should put in this newer model. "Not gasohol," he said, and this came from a VERY Republican person.
The great danger, given corn ethanol's already sub-optimal outcomes, is that elite policy makers, rigidly following industry leads will further entrench or lock-in the technology by increasing our dependencies ( e.g.15% corn ethanol mandate), expanding markets (e.g. Sustainable Aviation Fuel) and slowing the transition to truly sustainable and net-zero technologies. What we have here is entrapment and doubling down on a maladaptive pathway hazardous to health and obstructive to long term energy, food and land security. The danger grows by cementing the "transition".
It was suggested, as a thought exercise, that the settlers could not have plowed up the Midwest prairies more quickly had they followed a plan to do so. We seem to following the same "plan" when it comes to sacrificing the land and the future. For what in the end? To drive more health and biodiversity from the land and more young to the cities? To follow ADM's past propaganda (embarrassingly so on PBS), to "Drive on Corn Forever"?
Two other questions: 1. Iowa is investing hundreds of millions to billions of dollars to manage nitrogen and phosphorus in water, why not include that in the calculation? i.e. that drinking water would be less expensive w/out corn/soy. 2. Should the waste from ethanol in the calculation be considered?, i.e. goes to livestock feed
Well written. But, b/c I'm a pain-in-the-ass, I'll say Chris could have written about power. If the Iowa Farm Bureau is the 4th branch of government, it doesn't matter what 90%+ of the people want. How to collaborate to confront power? Is Chris getting support from the Iowa environmental groups? From the cities who have to pay to clean the water to make it drinkable?
I've got my canning jars lined up for Iowa peaches as soon as they're ready! And while I don't exactly need a new sweater, if there were some new sheep wandering around Iowa solar panels and their wool happened to show up in Minneapolis I've got the knitting needles ready.
Chris, has anyone compiled a list of projected date at which all existing ethanol plants in Iowa would be ready for rebuilding or mothballing? The industry is not going to just disappear. The logical path forward is transitioning plants to alternative uses. Chuck
Just musing here. Theoretically, if Iowa's biggest crop were tobacco, would a lot of Iowa's elected officials be declaring that all patriotic and noble-farmer-admiring Iowans (or heck, all Americans) should smoke? At least a little?
Also, I'd be amazed if at least some of that land converted to corn in those other states weren't environmentally sensitive and/or grassland/pasture. North American grassland bird populations are falling faster than those of any other bird group on the continent. And of course in some regions of some states, there is the irrigation/aquifer issue.
In Illinois, almost all of the grassland is gone - a small percentage is around in old CRP contracts that have been extended. What seems to be 'going' every day around here is trees. Bottomland forests, windbreaks, upland forests on marginal ground that shouldn't be farmed. It is common to find a big track hoe parked next to a windbreak or small woodland one day, and a big pile ready for the diesel fuel, old tires, and a match the next.
But yes - any remaining grasslands are also disappearing with the few small farmers that still had a few cattle. Old CRP contracts that have expired, either in grasslands/forbs or trees, are also being "converted". Maybe "perverted" is a better word.
PS I enjoy bumblebees as well!!
Let's remember that everyone in america knows smoking is bad and that it does cause cancer. We're at the early stage that tobacco was when it was telling everybody nothing to see here folks , oh , look over there , there's an acorn.
"Smoke 'em if you got 'em," the grunts in the Corps used to say on Iwo Jima. Or so my father-in-law told me (Bronze Star).
I never noticed that Iwo and Iowa are off by only one letter.
Corn for ethanol = Tobacco for survival?
I realize this post is cryptic. But "s/he who hath ears to hear, let them hear."
Did that economist include all the jobs created patching our roads busted up by trucks hauling corn?
Good one
In a future (hopefully) America that is headed by an administration that believes in climate change, corn for ethanol will be the first to go. As our growing zones move further north everyone here in Iowa can tell you we're able to grow things here earlier and even later into the season because of climate change. Corn is an accelerator of climate change. At least the way that we are utilizing it. And it's crazy that I have to defend fossil fuel because since I worked at Greenpeace years and years ago I've been railing against it. 😆 but it bears repeating.... two dirty fuels are not better than one.
We absolutely need to be growing food for humans, not corn for ethanol.
I read many many yrs ago the wheat belt would move North into Iowa and corn belt N into Mn and Canada because of lack of moisture needed for yellow corn. Be more of a wheat/SB. I'm wondering if we're seeing the earlier the last few yrs and now. Earlier to beat the heat for pollination time and time of rains. Of course we didn't know how the advancement in plant breeding for drought resistant traits would come into play but it has and will continue. Also look at the way bigger corn yields and being raised in like Dakotas and Canada with the progress in breeding has increased. Also a man on custom harvesting run into Montana shows corn with good yields there with new hybrids as well as the use of crop protection products, commercial fertilizer. Thousands upon thousands of potential acres in 'the big sky' country. We grow corn for export to help offset all the foreign made goods(instead of made in America) Americans like to consume, we grow yellow corn to grow human food more efficiently and faster, like beef, pork, chicken, turkey, we make ethanol from the starch and use the by-product, DDG's and corn gluten, to replace some corn and SB meal in livestock to make a cheaper diet but just as nutritious and as efficient. It just amazes me how many people have no comprehension of all this but think they know so much, but I've spent y life out here in the trenches.
One thing to always remember crop farmers are very very good at what they do and we always have to try to raise more than our competitors in the business, which is other producers!!!
It appears that may be coming true.
Thanks, Chris. Great analysis. What you are telling all of us is so important.
Imagine some of those acres filled with solar panels, sheep, goats even pigs wandering underneath, organic grass fed. Raise the panels a little, increase spacing and the whole dynamic changes for other fruits and vegetables. Changing the thinking around these issues is paramount, farmers who only know corn and soybeans, chemicals and tiling may be able to be influenced when the alternative to what they know is fiscally rewarding. Getting there is the issue.
I'm really interested in food grade hemp. It is a huge market and only growing. And with cannabis , you can get 2-3 batches per year. I'm less interested in medicinal or even personal use of t h c. That's a market that is over there and different. Food grade hemp would also help regenerate our soil.
It is so interesting to read so many comments often from people that have such an idealistic picture of farming and families that it bears no relation to the reality!!
How much income is derived from tobacco today vs USA historically? That was a difficult transition I bet. But maybe we really can't figure out hard things.
I'm sorry Chris but you left out all the jobs in health care that would be lost without ethanol. High paying jobs in the medical sector in the area of cardio vascular, pulmonary, and cancer along with all the support and research would no longer be needed. The economic vitality of Iowa would be decimated if agriculture pollution was curtailed. What are you thinking Chris?
Chris thanks for this. I’m struck by how expensive groceries are in the cities in Iowa and how unavailable they are in the small towns, despite sitting on the most fertile land on earth. I wonder if you could do an analysis about how if we converted the land to edible foods (if that’s feasible) what that might do for the cost of feeding people in Iowa.
Dude! ALL of this is on YouTube, including folks who ditched homesteading and why.
I suspect that if we want to save farming that we may need to break up those farms-for-industry into family sized parcels where families can grow more of their own food, including meat. Empty a few cities, which are an ecological disaster worse than a farm with depleted soil.
I nodded vociferously at the first sentence and I found the second to be a real head scratcher.. how on earth would you manage that? Forcibly relocate people?
I would want to make them cheap enough to own! It’s supply and demand, I think. We have states with growth management laws that jam people into cities. Those laws prevent those farms from being broken up into family sized parcels. The gold standard for a young family ought to be a home on no less than 1/3 of an acre. All of the building code requirements that need to be met drive up the price of a house.
Conversely, it’s the people who are jammed into cities who depend on the grocery stores with those bags of frozen food and veggies produced by one crop farms with large processing plants nearby. Food service for restaurants, school and hospital cafeterias, and senior living facilities also depend on those bags of food from 1-crop farms.
Ur idea is on the order communism platform. Ur idea sounds a little like serfdom to me. How would it be decided and 'by whom?' size of parcel to support family and in what ag area as it so different. I must laugh if u think that city people survive very long on this idea?
Parcels sold on the free market for family ownership is somehow communist serfdom? I want these people to be self-sufficient. What do you call housing prices so high and building policies that allow only apartments, requiring people to be dependent on landlords and city infrastructure? I have great confidence in the average human being to figure out how to own and maintain some property.
What I meant these acreages trying to raise own food could require extreme sacrifice. Soooo...., r u just going to TAKE the land from the owner? Also if the property has been in family for 3, 4 generations they usually don't want to sell off and sure not give it away like I would guess u wouldn't on ur home. Maybe the owner spent 40 yrs paying for it, and it's retirement income. In my area: Leach fields for septic system for a house in country is about $15,000, a well can be $8,000 to $15,000, very expensive to get electrical power brought in to each house plus monthly charge, of course property ins which has gone up drastically, don't forget property taxes where high percentage goes to schools. Property taxes are one of the 1st places that are gone after for programs, a house could be several thousand $$ for property taxes. The cost of the house is dependent on what these people think they need or deserve. A 1/3 A is 14,520 sq feet.
Raise own food? So do they buy a hog to have custom butchered, my last over $300. Maybe they know how to kill, skin, eviscerate and process. Still must freeze or can with pressure cooker (which can be very dangerous). If going to secure a young pig and feed for 5-6 months (if feed grain), where will feed come from and what price. If decide to do a beef they will get into some big money and bigger freezer (not cheap to run or buy) If want to raise own veg, great, I was raised that way. We all spent eves in garden, mom spent days canning and freezing such. Can have chickens for eggs and to eat. Must have feed for them, these days buy some terminal meat baby's and so many for to be layers. Of course these people will need facilities for all this food want to raise for themselves. Also remember animals sometimes die and then ur really out.
Ur idea has possibilities just maybe not very practical in many ways.
You have exposed the crux of the matter. Copying the current agriculture "state of the art" will no doubt cost too much to be self-reliant.
Doesn't have to be near 'state of the art' by a country mile, it's just what it costs. I suppose u can live in most any dwelling u want, unless there are children there, but the rest is pretty much so. Just reality.
Pretty much so, Even the amish families are not able to survive on their small farms today, are doing lots of off farm work for income. Many as carpenters, farmers mkts, road side stands, large gardens to deliver large quantities to auctions, etc.
"Bail faster", said the captain of the sinking boat ... rather than build a new ship.
Help us build that new craft we need, Chris.
It’s actually getting harder to find non-ethanol gas. I have been buying gas at a big-box store. When I asked the attendant what the new stickers meant, she assured me (old person) all about the advantages of ethanol and stated the company was following Iowa Law.
I put gasohol in my car for years, thinking I was doing a good thing for the environment. I drive my cars FOREVER. When I got a better/newer car 15 months ago, I asked my friendly, local repairman what kind of gas I should put in this newer model. "Not gasohol," he said, and this came from a VERY Republican person.
The great danger, given corn ethanol's already sub-optimal outcomes, is that elite policy makers, rigidly following industry leads will further entrench or lock-in the technology by increasing our dependencies ( e.g.15% corn ethanol mandate), expanding markets (e.g. Sustainable Aviation Fuel) and slowing the transition to truly sustainable and net-zero technologies. What we have here is entrapment and doubling down on a maladaptive pathway hazardous to health and obstructive to long term energy, food and land security. The danger grows by cementing the "transition".
It was suggested, as a thought exercise, that the settlers could not have plowed up the Midwest prairies more quickly had they followed a plan to do so. We seem to following the same "plan" when it comes to sacrificing the land and the future. For what in the end? To drive more health and biodiversity from the land and more young to the cities? To follow ADM's past propaganda (embarrassingly so on PBS), to "Drive on Corn Forever"?
Yes!
Ethanol ain't for all
What comes out of the pump is less power and less mileage
and it would seem there is no lubrication with alcohol, unless you drink it
No advantages here
Two other questions: 1. Iowa is investing hundreds of millions to billions of dollars to manage nitrogen and phosphorus in water, why not include that in the calculation? i.e. that drinking water would be less expensive w/out corn/soy. 2. Should the waste from ethanol in the calculation be considered?, i.e. goes to livestock feed
Well written. But, b/c I'm a pain-in-the-ass, I'll say Chris could have written about power. If the Iowa Farm Bureau is the 4th branch of government, it doesn't matter what 90%+ of the people want. How to collaborate to confront power? Is Chris getting support from the Iowa environmental groups? From the cities who have to pay to clean the water to make it drinkable?
I've got my canning jars lined up for Iowa peaches as soon as they're ready! And while I don't exactly need a new sweater, if there were some new sheep wandering around Iowa solar panels and their wool happened to show up in Minneapolis I've got the knitting needles ready.
Chris, has anyone compiled a list of projected date at which all existing ethanol plants in Iowa would be ready for rebuilding or mothballing? The industry is not going to just disappear. The logical path forward is transitioning plants to alternative uses. Chuck