60% of Farmers Oppose Ethanol Waiver

September 10, 2012

By: Sara Schafer, AgWeb.com Business and Crops Online Editor

According to a recent Farm Journal Pulse, more than half of those who responded do not support a waiver of the ethanol mandate.

The food-versus-fuel debate has resurfaced again, in amongst one of the worst droughts seen in the U.S. With a much smaller corn harvest projected for the country this year, many groups are calling for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to waive its Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS) mandate.

This week’s Farm Journal Pulse, a text message poll of farmers and ranchers, asked: Do you support a waiver of the ethanol mandate due to 2012 drought concerns?

Here are the results:
RFS Pulse

More than half, 60%, do not believe the ethanol mandate should be waived, due to drought conditions.

See the results on an interactive map:

Read more about the current ethanol controversy:

Short Corn Crop Puts the Squeeze on Ethanol
Groups are calling for an end of the ethanol mandate. Watch this U.S. Farm Report roundtable to see what that means for grain markets.

Ethanol Mandates Need to Be Waived
For dairy and livestock producers, it's a no-brainer. EPA administrators, however, will be under intense pressure from waiver opponents. But there is middle ground.

Waiving Ethanol Mandates Won’t Cut Corn Prices—Much
And when it comes to ethanol and its marriage to the Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS), that conventional wisdom applies in spades.

Lower Corn Production Fueling Calls for Ethanol Waiver
With USDA’s forecast that corn production this year will drop 13% to a six-year low as a result of the historic drought nationwide, the calls to divert more corn for food versus fuel are likely to grow more urgent.

Add Your Vote

You're invited to be part of the heartbeat of our new national producer panel that speaks up and speaks out. Participating is as easy as answering two quick poll questions per month via text message from your mobile phone.

By partnering with Commodity Update, the leading provider of agricultural information to mobile phones, Farm Journal sends you the question via a text message on the first and third Wednesday of each month.

See Comments

RELATED TOPICS: Corn, Ethanol, drought, Farm Journal Pulse

COMMENTS (8 Comments)

Dick and Becky - Rocksprings, TX
Shouldn't be using corn for fuel in the first place.
1:34 AM Sep 11th

RODNEY - KEWASKUM, WI
To Pull my Finger............Are you that DUMB? That Beef prices should rise and not grain prices should fall? Do you know what happens when prices get too high? DEMAND SLOWS and people want something cheeper to replace it! If meat gets too pricey demand will lower its self and intern will force grain prices to fall. The same with grain prices if grain prices get way out of hand the end user will look for something else to use and try to get the same effect. (like instead of feeding soybean meal, dairy producers are feeding linseed meal, or some producers are not feeding any grain or proteen to their herds). If were to follow your way of thinking we all will be up a creek with out a paddle sooner than you think!

12:23 AM Sep 11th

PullMyFinger - Chappell, NE
If there isn't enough money in the livestock industry then we need higher meat prices - not lower grain prices!!! Farmers are sick and tired of livestock producers whining and expecting 18th century grain prices to continue another 200 years. Promote your own product or get an office boy job - don't expect grain farmers to subsidize you forever.
11:29 PM Sep 10th

calder - Hamilton, MI
Wow what a suprise. And I bet oh about 60% of U S farmers are cash croppers . A mandate like this is actually tax on the livestock sector. But like any other government giveaway threaten to pull it and all he government dependents scream. I have and will continue to write my gov reps to look at the facts and not the lies put out by the ethenol wellfare receipians.
9:04 PM Sep 10th

Tboner - coopersville, MI
Amen to eliminating food stamps too. Get rid of the damn Farm Bill. It's not like us farmers can't survive without it. All that the subsidy programs have accomplished in the last 40 yrs. is to create a whole new class of dependence.
Farming used to be all about rugged individualism. Now it's beginning to look like a whole nother class of whiners who think that they are owed success based on who they are. Because of that we end up with totally wasteful programs like Ethanol.
5:11 PM Sep 10th

KEVIN - HALLSVILLE, MO
First I have cattle and I row crop so I see both sides, next I cannot be upset at the American Farmer for taking what is there to take, Livestock farmers have a pretty fair take from the Govt. as do the row crop guys. What you probably do not know is the Farm bill also provides MILLIONS TO PEOPLE who are not farmers at all through the welfare program food stamps WIC and other programs, you have no mention of them or no apparent problem with those people getting this money for nothing from these programs and you know as well as I that the majority of these people could not piss in a cup and pass any kind of test except that it is urine. What about all the FOREIGN AID TO COUNTRIES THAT ARE THROWING BOMBS AT USA---NO PROBLEM WITH THEM GETTING MILLIONS FROM USA GOVT? THEN WHAT ABOUT ALL THE BUSINESSES THAT HAVE GONE BANKRUPT FROM THE DOWNTURN IN THE ECONOMY NO PROBLEM WITH THEM GETTING MILLIONS FROM THE GOVT WITH NO ACCOUNT OF WHERE THE MONEY WENT SOLENDRA THEN YOU HAVE THE RICH LIKE GEORGE SORROS WHO OWNS MEDIA COMPANIES AND HAS THE RESORUCES TO BREAK OTHER COUNTRIES BY SHORT POSITIONS ON THEIR CURRENCY NO PROBLEM THERE AND THEN TERE ARE THE OIL COMPANIES CRUDE OIL WAS 150A BARREL AND DIESEL WAS 4.50 A GALLON NOW OIL 78-88 PER BARREL AND DIESEL 3.95 A GALLON SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THE MATH THERE OR SOMEONE IS GETTING RICH AND ITS NOT THE ETHANOL OR BIODIESEL GUYS THEY ARE THE ONES THAT WILL EVENTUALLY HELP US GET INDEPENDENT FROM THE FOREIGN OIL GIANTS I FEEL YOUR PAIN BUT THE SUBSIDIES FOR ETHANOL I BELIEVE ARE GONE AND I STILL SELL MY CORN TO THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO PAY ME THE MOST AT THE TIME AS WELL AS I SELL MY COWS TO THE ONE THAT WILL PAY ME THE MOST AT THE TIME IN WHICH I DECIDE TO SELL THEM OH BY THE WAY ETHANOL PRODUCERS WILL SELL YOU THE CORN BACK AFTER THEY MAKE RENEWABLE FUEL CALLED ETHANOL THAT IS IN THE GASOLINE YOU BURN IN YOUR CAR AND TRUCK, IN THE FORM OF FEED TO FEED YOUR COWS AND YOU DO NOT EVEN HAVE TO GRIND IT JUST SOME THINGS ON MY MIND HAVE A GREAT DAY AND GOD BLESS
9:18 AM Sep 10th

Tboner - coopersville, MI
SD Farmer has it right. Those grain farmers cry like a bunch of spoiled babies, banging their spoons on their high chair demand more, more ,more from big mamma Government. They want subsidized crops, subsidized crop insurance , subsidized markets (Ethanol), disaster relief money and loans.

yada,yada,yada!

Meanwhile, us cattle and hog producers are told to toughen up and wait for the free market to come to us.
5:32 PM Sep 9th

Smallest Dairy Farmer
Who reads farm journal mostly? No livestock farmer or any other end users supports enthanol at all, just because of one FACT. It is totally a mandated & government supported subsidized program. If enthanol were a private non subsidized business that must operate on markets, not subsidies or mandates or government gas pumps, paid for by consumers, farm industry, end users to compete against themselves than it would be just another business that must make it on demand for a good product or not. A poll thrown out there that has no statistics as to what percent of respondents are corn farmers is a totally worthless ad. I would like to see a poll done by Rasmussen on this one. It's the peoples money pouring in to kept this farm solandra afloat.
6:28 AM Sep 9th

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