Data Also Disproves Food v. Fuel Claims

The Wall Street Journal’s Scott Kilman reported earlier this week on a letter sent by General Mills, the Grocery Manufacturers Association and Kraft Foods to Ag. Sec. Tom Vilsack, asking for reduction of trade tariffs on sugar. From Kilman’s article and the letter, it’s clear that grocery manufacturers are once again trying to distract public [...]

CBO Calculates Ethanol’s Impact on Food Prices

According to a newly released Congressional Budget Office report, ethanol contributed between 0.5 and 0.8 percentage points (10-15 percent) of the overall 5.1 percent increase in food prices between April 2007 and April 2008. That estimate is considerably lower than previous estimates. The report also calculated the increase in costs for federal food aid programs, [...]

Setting the Record Straight

I was pleased to read AP reporter Deborah Jian Lee’s story on Jan. 12, saying that the food and fuel debate has “receded to a murmur, and even the Grocers Manufacturers Association, one of the most vocal biofuel critics, seems to be backing off a bit.” Biofuel producers will likely remember that last May the [...]

More Biofuels Bashing

Exactly a month ago, Roll Call newspaper revealed that the Grocery Manufacturers Association had launched a PR campaign to roll back U.S. biofuel policy. GMA is once again on the offensive, releasing an industry-funded study that blames biofuels for higher food prices, ignoring the rapid increase in the price of oil that is driving up [...]

A Sustainable Green Revolution

The Washington Post last week called for “a greener revolution” that would restore the world’s ability to feed itself at widely affordable prices. “The next green revolution must be ‘greener’ than the first; it must achieve higher production through the wisest possible application of scarce resources.
The Financial Times of London also called for “a second [...]

Will the Press Set the Record Straight?

Last week, Roll Call revealed that the Grocery Manufacturers Association paid for a PR campaign aimed at blaming high food prices on biofuels (call it the ‘vast chicken wing conspiracy’). But since the revelation, there’s been very little effort in the press to set the record straight.
The USDA this week held a press conference to [...]

Roll Call Reveals Who’s Beating Up on Ethanol

Anna Smith of Roll Call today filed a story on how the Grocery Manufacturers Association is “leading an ‘aggressive’ public relations campaign for the past two months in an effort to roll back ethanol mandates that passed in last year’s energy bill.” GMA hired Glover Park Group to run the campaign, Smith writes, based on GMA’s [...]