Ethanol
- Thread starter Dcup
- Start date
niceshot
New member
LM the math is just not that hard, 45 cents per gallon blenders credit multiplied by 3 gallons of ethanol per bushel of corn equals $1.35 per bushel, and yes you are getting tax money its neatly hidden from the WTO in the inflated price of corn. LM in reading all of your posts on owning land, developing habitat, road hunting, and now ethanol, I am starting to worry that subconsciously you have developed an attitude,"I got mine who gives a shit about the rest of these poor pheasant hunters" Please tell me its not true.
landman
New member
What I read into these posts is that some want to destroy the ethanol industry in order to reduce the price of corn so farmers make less money so that they are less inclined to convert grass land to crop so that you have more birds to shoot.
I'm guessing that there are a lot of folks in the ethanol industry who would like to see CRP go away so that more land is available to plant corn so that the price of corn goes down so they can make more money selling ethanol.
Guess who is going to win that one. We are going to have to adjust to the ethanol industry, it isn't going away anytime soon, so we need to get beyond that.
The Blenders credit goes to the oil companies, not the ethanol plants. While the tax credit might help the ethanol industry sell its product there is not a direct relationship between the credit and the price of corn. Some of the tax credit shows up as a lower price for ethanol blend at the pump.
http://www.poetenergy.com/ethanol/blenders.asp?ir=
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niceshot
New member
A guy can dream can't he...
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moellermd
Super Moderator
That's a stretch LM. If I know I am getting a tax credit, more profit, than I can afford to pay more for my inputs. Plus if it was not for the credits the ethanol business would be no more.
niceshot
New member
Amen blood brother. Now I want all of us to dream about shooting roosters at at an old rusty ethanol plant overgrown with kochia weeds.
moellermd
Super Moderator
And I thought I was the only one who ate to much lead paint as a child.
This is kind of what I was looking for when I started this thread. I am someone who really just got started pheasant hunting, and thinking about the external influences on the thing I love to do the most. I mean, I have pheasant hunted for about 8 years, but now I am at the stage in my life where things like ethanol ACTUALLY matter to me.
I have heard arguments from both sides and it seems to me that this is a battle that will go on longer than Vietnam.
Clearly money speaks louder than any form of anything in the world, so I have to understand where a farmer is coming from, but the assistance that the ethanol programs receive from the government, far outweigh what the program could do by itself. It will never be a stand alone enterprise.
One thing that really bothers me is seeing all the corn that gets left in the field at the end of harvest. Whether it be because of snow, rain, storage, etc, problems, think about all the square miles of land that could've been left alone for habitat. Someone has to keep record of all of the corn that gets left in fields. Why not average it out and take that out of the expected harvest each year?
Clearly there is no grave desire to get every last bit of corn out of the fields every year. Why? Because the government pays the farmer what they dont get out anyway. This perturbs me a little bit.
As a construction project manager, I dont get paid if I only complete 75% of the project, leaving the other 25% of the project to sit idle. Who finishes it and when? You know what would happen to the company bottom line if we let our business operate like that? Well, there wouldnt be a bottom line. But if we leave acres, and acres of corn in the field each year the farmer still has a comfortable bottom line dont they?
We need to look into alternative fuel sources. I have heard of grassland being a major energy alternative, why not look into that. I havent researched it enough to fully understand it, but it has to worth the effort of finding out.
Drill our own oil. Import sugarcane based ethanol. Produce more sugarcane in the southern states. I dont know, but if we keep this rate up, hunters like me will cease to exist...and so will our dogs and everything we love about it. I am 26, with my first kid on the way. When he/she looks at all the pictures on the wall, how do I explain what I was doing?
It will be like having a native indian explain what buffalo hunting was like...before we came in and destroyed that way of life.
I have heard arguments from both sides and it seems to me that this is a battle that will go on longer than Vietnam.
Clearly money speaks louder than any form of anything in the world, so I have to understand where a farmer is coming from, but the assistance that the ethanol programs receive from the government, far outweigh what the program could do by itself. It will never be a stand alone enterprise.
One thing that really bothers me is seeing all the corn that gets left in the field at the end of harvest. Whether it be because of snow, rain, storage, etc, problems, think about all the square miles of land that could've been left alone for habitat. Someone has to keep record of all of the corn that gets left in fields. Why not average it out and take that out of the expected harvest each year?
Clearly there is no grave desire to get every last bit of corn out of the fields every year. Why? Because the government pays the farmer what they dont get out anyway. This perturbs me a little bit.
As a construction project manager, I dont get paid if I only complete 75% of the project, leaving the other 25% of the project to sit idle. Who finishes it and when? You know what would happen to the company bottom line if we let our business operate like that? Well, there wouldnt be a bottom line. But if we leave acres, and acres of corn in the field each year the farmer still has a comfortable bottom line dont they?
We need to look into alternative fuel sources. I have heard of grassland being a major energy alternative, why not look into that. I havent researched it enough to fully understand it, but it has to worth the effort of finding out.
Drill our own oil. Import sugarcane based ethanol. Produce more sugarcane in the southern states. I dont know, but if we keep this rate up, hunters like me will cease to exist...and so will our dogs and everything we love about it. I am 26, with my first kid on the way. When he/she looks at all the pictures on the wall, how do I explain what I was doing?
It will be like having a native indian explain what buffalo hunting was like...before we came in and destroyed that way of life.
captaincoot
Banned
Dcup I farm and I know of no govt or insurance programs that pay farmers to leave crop in the field. If there is thats wrong. There are govt payments that all farmers get every year. I personally feel they are wrong and should only go to beginning farmers maybe for ten years after that you should be ok. I take the payment but all it does is make the big farmer bigger.
moellermd
Super Moderator
I think you are mistaken on this. There are some programs which pay farmers to leave a few rows along roads as a snow break, but the feds do not pay farmers to leave corn in the field.
landman
New member
Here is how it works. Let's say that a farmer buys insurance for one of his fields to guarentee 10,000 bushels of production. If he combines 9,000 bushels and leaves 10 acres unharvested then an insurance adjuster will come out to appraise the 10 unharvested acres. In SD the end of the insurance period is Dec 10 so the appraisal will be done if the corn is still in the field after that. If the appraisal is 100 bu/ac then he will add 100 times 10 acres to equal 1000 bushels still in the field. So he has 9,000 harvested and 1,000 in the field to equal 10,000 production. In this case he will not get paid for any loss in production. If the deer eat all the corn left in the field after Dec 10 he will not get paid for that loss.
There is a lot more corn in the field this year because of the cool summer and wet October. The corn just did not dry down enough to combine so a lot of farmers elected to leave the corn in the field until spring. The USDA says that about 9 percent of the corn is still in the field this year. Usually there is less than 1 percent left.
It should be noted that the Federal crop insurance program is supported by the Federal Government but the greater majority of the loss payments are paid from the insurance premiums that farmers pay. It is not unusual for a farmer to pay $50,000 or more in insurance premiums per year.
moellermd
Super Moderator
LM, Correct me if I am wrong but I do not believe that insurance covers loss due to failure to harvest. If corn is in the field after 10 Dec, I think that you had to extend coverage for those fields not yet harvested. Most farmers only cover around 70% of their yield anyway. Either way its not like farmers say oh well I'll just leave some corn in the field and the government will pay me for it. It could be what D-cup is referring to is the check strips that farmers leave for the adjuster.
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landman
New member
That is correct. Also the insurance company is not obligated to extend the coverage of the crop after the insurance period. Any damage occuring after the insurance period, Dec 10 for corn, is not covered. If corn is cut for silage, earlage or high moisture corn then strips must be left for an adjuster to appraise. Usually the farmer will take the strips out after the appraisal is finished. The appraisal is needed to establish the yield for that field in order to keep a 10 year average to determine his average yield for insurance purposes. The presence of strips does not mean he is getting an insurance payment. If he does not leave strips for the adjuster then he must record a zero for production for that year, which would greatly reduce his average production and his ability to insure in future years.
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landman
New member
I don't see how anyone of us can complain about government assistance for the ethanol industry when we depend so much on governmental assistance for pheasant habitat such as CRP and other environmental programs. Some in the hunting arena say let's take away the incentives for ethanol but leave those for CRP while some in the ethanol arena say let's get rid of CRP and leave the incentives for ethanol.
What would happen if we took away the incentives for ethanol and CRP? Well the answer to that is what we experienced in the early 70's, which for those of us old enough to remember, is low pheasant populations and lower corn prices. I don't see anything good coming from that.
What would happen if we took away the incentives for ethanol and CRP? Well the answer to that is what we experienced in the early 70's, which for those of us old enough to remember, is low pheasant populations and lower corn prices. I don't see anything good coming from that.
This is why the Conservation Reserve Program was deemed to fail from the start. It was never about conservation and always about economics. Whatever happened to the novel idea of protecting highly erodable acres, stream and river buffers, and the quality of our soil and water sources for future generations?
It should have been named the CPCP, Commodity Price Control Program, from the very beginning and then we wouldn't have a thing to complain about. Ethanol or not we would all stand to benefit from cost-attractive buffer programs as well as keeping double black diamond hillsides out of crop production. Call me crazy and stupid but this would make sense to me.
To each their own I guess!!
It should have been named the CPCP, Commodity Price Control Program, from the very beginning and then we wouldn't have a thing to complain about. Ethanol or not we would all stand to benefit from cost-attractive buffer programs as well as keeping double black diamond hillsides out of crop production. Call me crazy and stupid but this would make sense to me.
To each their own I guess!!
pheasantaddict
New member
I will definately agree with you. We need a long term solution to conservation.
landman
New member
In my opinion, the Conservation Reserve Program is the most effective and successful conservation program ever adapted by the the US Government. It is responsible for the resurgence of the ringneck pheasant, waterfowl and many other forms of wildlife. Futhermore, CRP is responsible for improved water quality, reduction in soil erosion and habitat for wildlife. There are many types of CRP programs such as the CP22, CP30, CP18C and others which target stream and river buffers, highly erodible soil, waterways, saline and windbreaks.
Perhaps the economics of low grain prices encouraged the introduction of the CRP program back in the mid 80's, but the primary purpose of the Conservation Reserve Program is for the Conservation of soil, water and wildlife.
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So are you saying that we can lose all of the acres we have already lost and continue to lose more because we have solved forever the problems of water quality, soil erosion, and habitat for wildlife? You only have to look around at our swollen and silt filled rivers, our disappearing ringneck pheasants, and the continued erosion of topsoil to realize that these are not problems that can be solved with a program that was temporarily around and a temporary success.
You are right in your assertion that the program was a huge success at it's prime but it is no longer at it's prime and all the good it has done for wildlife, soil, and water quality is being reversed and reversed quickly. It is a failure because it is no longer a growing program it is now a dying program at best. I guess I consider a program to be deemed a success when its positive impacts are sustainable. The program quite simply is nowhere near what it used to be and isn't even going to continue in it's depleted and current state.
You are right in your assertion that the program was a huge success at it's prime but it is no longer at it's prime and all the good it has done for wildlife, soil, and water quality is being reversed and reversed quickly. It is a failure because it is no longer a growing program it is now a dying program at best. I guess I consider a program to be deemed a success when its positive impacts are sustainable. The program quite simply is nowhere near what it used to be and isn't even going to continue in it's depleted and current state.