1 October 2012

2 minute read

North America

According to TSCRA, the government requires 40 per cent of the US annual corn crop go directly toward ethanol production; however, federal law does allow the EPA administrator to waive this mandate for up to one year if the implementation would severely harm the economy or environment of a state or region.

“As record drought conditions throughout the US continue to push corn yields lower and prices upward, the economic ramifications for consumers, livestock and animal agriculture producers will become even more severe,” said Joe Parker Jr., rancher and TSCRA president, in comments submitted to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. “These ramifications are particularly severe in Texas, the leading cattle producing state in the nation.”

Mr Parker says that last year was the first year ever that ethanol production used more corn than all animal agriculture combined. With corn supplies continuing to tighten across the US, the current RFS standard is only compounding the situation by reducing the already extremely limited amount of corn available for feed.

TSCRA submitted comments to the EPA after the association passed policy during its fall meeting reaffirming the group’s opposition to federal and state subsidies and production mandates for renewable fuels that use feed grain and/or other feedstuffs used for cattle production.

“Ranchers understand well-intentioned efforts to move our nation toward energy independence, but those efforts should not consist of government mandates that artificially give one commodity priority at the expense of another,” Mr Parker said.

"The cattle industry supports a free market system, and although a full repeal of the RFS standard in today’s political climate may not be possible, we are hopeful that the EPA will help alleviate the current corn crisis by taking the government mandates out of the equation and put corn back on the same playing field as cattle producers.”

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