Report: Don’t Blame Biofuels for High Food Prices
Use of corn and soybeans for ethanol and biodiesel production can be blamed for only .15 percent of the increase in U.S. food prices.
The increased use of corn and soybeans for ethanol and biodiesel production has had only a very negligible effect on food prices, according to the American Trucking Association’s Web site, Truckline.com.
Recent analyses by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy showed that the increased use can be blamed for a barely measurable fraction -- only as much as .15 percent -- of the increase in U.S. food prices.
Much larger causes of increased corn and soybean prices include increased demand for processed foods and meat in India and China; short grain crops due to drought in Australia, Canada, Ukraine, the European Union and the United States; export restrictions; and higher costs for agricultural production, food processing and marketing due to high energy prices, according to Truckline.com.
The full text of the report is available at: http://www.energy.gov/media/FactSheet__Biofuels_Lower_Gas_Prices.pdf.
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