Ethanol to bump up food prices

Demand for fuel cuts into corn crop

WASHINGTON – Ethanol will devour 50 percent more corn this year, eating into the food industry’s share of the crop, the Agriculture Department said this week.

From breakfast cereal to beef to beer, competition from ethanol could raise prices for all kinds of foods.


People don’t eat the kind of corn that makes ethanol, but cows, pigs and chickens do. And people eat other grains that will become less plentiful as farmers plant more corn. Demand for ethanol is pushing feed prices higher and enticing farmers to switch from other crops.

Farmers are expected to grow a record 12.2 billion bushels of corn in 2007, said Keith Collins, the department’s chief economist. An estimated 3.2 billion bushels will go into ethanol, up from 2.15 billion in 2006.

AP