Meat prices are rising because of ethanol production

As I write this column, in the San Antonio Express-News Business section, it states that meat prices are rising and will continue to do so as corn is used in greater amounts in ethanol production. This is good news to farmers and ranchers in part, but bad news to consumers. The resulting higher prices for feed is causing ranchers to cut back on their meat production, which results in higher prices for beef, chicken and pork for your barbecues this summer.

When I fill up my gas tank I see on the pump that it states my fuel is 10 percent ethanol. Thus I guess we are saving one out of every 10 barrels of oil. That is good for the farmer, rancher and consumer in general. However, we are saving with one hand and caused to spend it with the other. We have savings on fuel and yet getting higher food bills. As I have said often in the last few years, this is not what President Bush was saying to do in his push for ethanol production and seeking fuel self reliance. This path is rather the way ethanol producers chose to go as it was easier.

There is good news on the horizon as we see cellulose ethanol increasing in our future. The use of sorghum to manufacture ethanol is expanding. Sorghum has it all. Here is a crop that is grain, sugar and cellulose. The grain aspect is very much a part of today’s economic world. We don’t eat it, but do use it in feed, but we produce more than we use and sell part of our harvest on the world market. The sugar part we do use to make sorghum molasses. I’m old enough and rural enough to have had sorghum molasses, but most of you very likely never experienced it. We put maple syrup on our pancakes mostly now.

Sorghum’s use for the manufacturing of ethanol is the least evasive in our economy or life style. Sorghum can be grown on marginal farm land, where corn and other economically impacting crops would not be profitable. Thus we are not cutting ourselves short. With the production of sorghum ethanol we still have the by-product of feed, thus we are not hurting our economy in some other way.

The by-products of sorghum ethanol also are useful in the production of fertilizer. Thus this process is useful in increasing crops of all kinds.

The cost of sorghum ethanol is dropping and its by-products are useful in making its production even more economical. Presently grain ethanol production is some 10.7 billion gallons. This is still far short of our government’s goal of 36 billion gallons by 2022. Sorghum will go a long way to get us there, without the downside of corn ethanol. Remember, the purpose behind all of this is to meet our needs.

Father Samuel Heitkamp is a retired priest of the archdiocese.