The Corn That Broke the Cattleman’s Back

By Jillian Kay Melchior August 19, 2013

The high price of corn, partially a result of ethanol mandates, is putting feedlots out of business.   The number of American feedlots leaving the business increased by 9,900 percent in the last year — a mass exodus prompted by the rising cost of feed.

The catastrophically high price of corn has been attributed largely to last year’s severe drought, which was certainly a factor. But the man-made — or rather Washington-made — causes often get short shrift, though they contribute significantly to the growing cost of feed.

Feedlots have two main inputs: corn and livestock. Take beef: Ranchers raise calves then pass them on to the feedlots, where they are “grown.” The Department of Agriculture reports that “corn is the primary feed grain in the United States, accounting for more than 90 percent of total feed grain production and use” for animals. From the feedlot, the cattle go to the slaughterhouse, then to the grocery-store aisle and finally to the steakhouse or your kitchen table…… In the past year, the government has directed more than 40 percent of the American corn crop to ethanol production. To meet the mandate next year, Americans will be required to use 16.6 billion gallons of ethanol — “requiring farm land roughly equal to the size of Kentucky,” as USA Today recently noted.……To Read More…..

My Take – This ethonol issue is more far reaching than feed lots.  Ethanol is a worldwide disaster in the making.  I keep watching these ‘experts’ from the media talking about the riots in the Muslim world and how it all seemed spontaneous; as one one lady journalist said this morning; the rioting started in Egypt without any apparent leader. Millions surged into the streets outraged. Why? We have to remember that there are only two things the general population wants…..three hots and a cot. When their basic survival becomes threatened they react.

A number of years ago I watched a documentary about the Russian Revolution and they made the point that the final straw of discontent that triggered spontaneous rioting all over the nation was the fact that they ran out of kerosene in the middle of winter. That was the last straw

In the Middle East soaring food prices triggered food riots in both 2008 and 2011, and just as the communists jumped in front of these unorganized riots in Russia the jihadists have equally benefitted in the Middle East. What caused these spontaneous riots all over the Middle East? The price of food!

So what is the solution now? There is none. These people have no sense of democracy; they have no sense of individual rights; they have no sense of property rights; they have no tolerance for differing views of life, and as long as they are dominated by Islam there can be no answer.  But one thing is clear.  When we use food to fuel our cars the cost of food goes up and in many areas of the world that is a death sentence. 

Where is our moral outrage?  We have more than enough oil to take care of the world's needs for hundreds of years.  The justification for developing bio-fuels was based on the false premise that we were running out of oil!  That is false, and now we know it's false.