Biodiesel Board CEO Fights Kraft’s Fear-Mongering
The National Biodiesel Board is refusing to let food companies spread fear and misinformation in the continuing food-versus-fuel debate.
NBB CEO Joe Jobe, responding to Kraft Foods’ CEO Irene Rosenfeld’s blame of biofuels for the rise in food prices, has submitted his own opinion piece to USA Today asking how Kraft can continue to make soaring profits at the cost of its customers… while trying to wrongly blame biodiesel and ethanol:
[Rosenfeld] said, “Forty percent of the food supply is being diverted for use in fuel.” Almost half of all grains, meats, dairy, vegetables and fruit in the world are being converted to fuel? This is fear-mongering at its worst.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization found that of the 10.4 billion acres of available farm land, only 3.7 billion acres are used. Of that, less than 1% is used for biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel.
Food companies have blamed biofuels all year for higher prices. Rosenfeld’s statement shows how far companies will go to distract Americans as Kraft raked in $1.4 billion in earnings last quarter. Adjusted for inflation, corn and wheat have dropped by 50% since spring, and soybean prices are lower than at almost any other time since the Great Depression even as biofuels production expands. This year, oil companies made more than ever in profits. The difference is, when oil prices dropped, so did the price at the pump. Too bad Big Food isn’t living up to Big Oil’s standards.
So the next time you’re picking up a box of “the Cheesiest” maybe you should ask, why is it still the priciest? Rest assured it’s not biodiesel’s and ethanol’s faults.
5 Comments »
kum dollison
Good for Jobe. Just imagine how much good he could do if he had some money to work with.
Biodiesel Board CEO Fights Kraft’s Fear-Mongering
[...] Biodiesel Board CEO Fights Kraft’s Fear-Mongering The National Biodiesel Board is refusing to let food companies spread fear and misinformation in the continuing food-versus-fuel debate. … See all stories on this topic [...]
Robert Nelson
Actually, 31% of our corn crop was used in 2008 for making Ethanol. This represents 25% of all our grains since wheat production was reduced for extra corn planting this year, making corn 80% of our grain crop. This represents 5% of all the grains in the world for 2008, so it doesn’t make much sense to think this had negligible effects on the food industry.
http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Content.asp?contentid=230813
Steve Stout
The point is not if biofuels had any affect, the point is that these crooks were saying biofuels were the root cause of higher food prices. The cost of petroleum, market speculators and Big Food had much more to do with it.
These cowards are stealing food from the poor to line their pockets and using the “food vs. fuel” lie to cover their tracks. I’m not a vehement supporter of corn ethanol, but I damn sure don’t support the GMA and their underhanded tactics.
Roman Wolff
Good job Joe. Biofuels served as a smoke screen to increase prices, and silence as a smoke screen to keep them high while all other prices drop.
The short sightedness is appalling. Biofuels are supporting improvements in crop efficiency that will make food much cheaper and plentiful in the future. Further, Biofuels will make transportation costs (a major factor in food costs) far more stable by adding elasticity to the price of fuel.
Biofuels are a long term positive force in keeping food cheap…I guess that is the threat.
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