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Monday, May 21, 2007

Not law but - Farmers scramble to feed pigs and chickens when corn prices go through the roof

Ed Feigenbaum has this quote today in his Indiana Daily Insight blog, from Kimberley Strassel's Friday, May 18th Wall Street Journal "Potomac Watch" column: ($$$)

It's taken politicians a while to catch on to these anti-ethanol vibes, but they've now got the picture. At an agriculture conference in Indianapolis last fall, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson spoke, delivering their usual fare about how ethanol was the greatest thing since sliced corn bread. They expected warm applause; in the past the entire ag community united around helping their brother corn farmers make a buck. But now that ethanol is literally taking food from their beasts' mouths, much of that community has grown less friendly. According to one attendee, Messrs. Daniels, Johanns and Johnson were later slammed with snippy ethanol questions from angry livestock owners, much to their dazed surprise. Word is that even the presidential candidates -- who usually can say no wrong about ethanol while touring the Midwest -- are having to be more selective about where they make their remarks.
Today the WSJ has a front-page story ($$$), titled "With Corn Prices Rising, Pigs Switch To Fatty Snacks - On the Menus: Trail Mix, Cheese Curls, Tater Tots; Farmer Jones's Ethanol Fix." . It begins:
GARLAND, N.C. -- When Alfred Smith's hogs eat trail mix, they usually shun the Brazil nuts.

"Pigs can be picky eaters," Mr. Smith says, scooping a handful of banana chips, yogurt-covered raisins, dried papaya and cashews from one of the 12 one-ton boxes in his shed. Generally, he says, "they like the sweet stuff."

Mr. Smith is just happy his pigs aren't eating him out of house and home. Growing demand for corn-based ethanol, a biofuel that has surged in popularity over the past year, has pushed up the price of corn, Mr. Smith's main feed, to near-record levels. Because feed represents farms' biggest single cost in raising animals, farmers are serving them a lot of people food, since it can be cheaper.

And moreover, Indiana chickens are eating "tainted"dog and cat food, according to this story from Friday's Louisville Courier Journal. A quote:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- About 80,000 chickens in Indiana that were fed contaminated pet food scraps can be released for processing because testing showed meat from the birds is safe to eat, the Agriculture Department said Friday.

The chickens, bred to lay eggs hatched for chicks, had been held on Indiana farms after eating feed that included an industrial chemical blamed in the deaths of cats and dogs.

Their feed was supplemented with pet food scraps containing melamine and related compounds. Testing showed that melamine does not accumulate in birds and is eliminated by their bodies quickly, the USDA said.

Previously, the department cleared thousands of pigs given feed also made using pet food scraps.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 21, 2007 08:30 AM
Posted to General News