NCGA Executive Refutes Phony “Food versus Fuel” Issue (4-18-08)

Appearing on E&E’s OnPoint television program, National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) Vice President of Public Policy Jon Doggett refuted the food and fuel arguments currently circulating in the media.  Doggett maintained that commodity prices are having very little impact on the price of food and cited oil prices as the more likely catalyst.

Doggett put the current corn and food prices into perspective. "Our trend line yields are going up significantly. We are using better seed corn than we've ever used before. Every year that gets better and better," said Doggett. "Our yields are going up exponentially and so I think we're going to have an opportunity to meet that demand, meet the demand in the world market, meet the demand for our traditional customers in the livestock industry, meet the demand for industrial uses, meet the demand for food.”

Doggett also commented on the implementation of cellulosic ethanol:

"Well, let's take two scenarios. The first is, is that you replace corn acres with switchgrass. And if you go ahead and make ethanol from switchgrass that came from acres that you were growing corn on, you don't have any distillers dried grain. You take all of that feedstock and it all goes into fuel. So, we have something that produces both fuel and feed. Secondly, we're anticipating that the movement to cellulosic will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. We're going to see things like corn cobs or corn stocks, corn stover, there will be those kinds of feedstocks that are already been produced that could be used in a plant in conjunction with corn ethanol production."

Click here to watch the interview or read a transcript. Doggett also appeared Thursday evening on Fox News Channel’s Special Report with Brit Hume.