This Ethanol Report podcast features some of the comments made at the World Food Prize events last week by UK Scientific Advisor Sir Gordon Conway, International Biofuels Commission co-chair Roberto Rodrigues, World Bank president Robert Zoellick, former senators George McGovern and Bob Dole – this year’s World Food Prize recipients, and Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer.

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Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer told reporters after an address to the World Food Prize breakfast in Des Moines Friday that “some plants are under pressure because they’ve been speculating on corn.”

Schafer said there are USDA programs that could, for example, help the companies refinance and reduce their interest rates on operating expenses such as corn purchases. USDA’s Rural Development Program can lend up to $25 million to refinance or loan guarantees. “We have several ways we can help with dollars in rural areas,” Schafer said.

Some ethanol companies, most notably VeraSun, speculated on corn prices during the summer and locked in prices when corn was at $7 per bushel and now cash prices are about $3.50 per bushel, causing some significant losses. “There is going to have to be some credit applied to companies to buy some lower-priced corn to blend with their higher-priced corn obligations,” Schafer said.

If USDA allows the ethanol plants to participate in the loan programs, Schafer said there would be “no restrictions or litmus tests” on the size or ownership for companies to qualify.

USB was one of the soybean industry sponsors of the World Food Prize luncheon in Des Moines this week which gave CEO John Becherer, pictured here with one of this year’s WFP winners former Senator Bob Dole, to talk about the role soybeans can play in both feeding and fueling the world.

“The reality is we do have an opportunity and we need to be producing more product so that we can feed more fish, more pork and more poultry,” Becherer said. Since soybeans are 20 percent oil and 80 percent protein, that allows producers to grow a crop that can provide both.

USB’s development of the biodiesel market has the potential also to pave the way for other feedstocks to be used to make biodiesel. “Developing biodiesel directly raised the farm gate value for soybeans and led to the commercialization of biodiesel,” Becherer said. “Other feedstocks such as animal fats were grandfathered in on the biodiesel research and commercialization which has led to expanding opportunities for other feedstocks for biodiesel.”

“I don’t see that stopping,” he continued. “I don’t think that soybean oil ever believed that we would be the be all, end all for producing soybean oil to be converted into biodiesel. As we move forward, I think the opportunities for other feedstocks to play a part in this process are great.”

He adds that alternatives like jatropha hold great promise for improving subsistence farmers in poorer countries.

Listen to an interview with Becherer here:
wfp-08-becherer-biodiesel.mp3

You can also download the audio with this link:
John Becherer at World Food Prize (mp3)

See photos of the World Food Prize event here.

He believes that increasing the use and acceptance of biotech crops is vital. “We’re entering a new generation in agriculture,” Grassley said. “This generation not only encompasses feeding the world, but also fueling vehicles and eventually getting in to treating patients through pharmaceuticals in crops. This offers opportunities for biotechnology growth throughout the world that will continue to feed populations and provide new prospects for our rural communities.”

In a brief interview after the breakfast, Sen. Grassley said that biotechnology gives us an opportunity to have a stronger agriculture allowing for multiple uses of agricultural crops. “Things like the World Food Prize give an opportunity to educate people about biotechnology,” Grassley said. “By expanding agriculture you can provide food, fiber and fuel.”

Grassley said that the incentives for biodiesel included in the financial bailout passed by Congress are critical to development of the industry. “That’s how you get infant industries started,” he said. “The best proof of that is that we would not have an ethanol industry today were it not for the ethanol incentives.”

He got very passionate about the need for incentives in developing any alternative energy. He used the example of developing cellulosic ethanol. “People say we ought to have cellulosic so we’re not using grain, but how do they think we’d ever get a second generation of ethanol from cellulosic if we don’t have the first generation of ethanol, and we wouldn’t have the first generation if we didn’t have the tax incentives and the public policies to encourage an infant industry.”

Asked if he is concerned about Senator McCain’s comments about doing away with ethanol incentives, Grassley said, “Not as long as I’m in Congress. When he’s president of the United States, we’ll still be developing an ethanol industry.”

Listen to an interview with Grassley at the World Food Prize here:
wfp-08-grassley.mp3

You can also download the audio with this link:
Chuck Grassley interview (mp3)

See photos of the World Food Prize event here.

“Our focus should be on sharing our technology, equipment and know-how, processes and procedures to help farmers all over the world boost the productivity of their land,” Schafer said. “Just in the last 15 years, our corn yields have increased from an average of 100 bushels per acre to 150 bushels per acre, a 50 percent increase in yield in 15 years.”

“Gains of this kind have allowed the United States producers to meet the rising demand for food and feed and fuel, while maintaining record level exports and strong food aid donations,” Schafer added.

Listen to Schafer’s address to the World Food Prize here:
wfp-08-schafer.mp3

You can also download the audio with this link:
Ed Schafer at World Food Prize (mp3)

See photos of the World Food Prize event here.

The National Biodiesel Board formed a sustainability task force earlier this year, and one of the members of that task force is Victoria Carver with the Iowa Soybean Association. She says they are in the process of developing an advisory committee of experts and will be holding a symposium next month on the issue.

Carver attended many of the sessions at the World Food Prize symposium and was pleased with the overall emphasis on biotech crops, which can help increase production while not increasing land use. However, she did challenge a speaker during one session who said that biofuels were responsible were increasing food prices. “Food prices in real terms have come down dramatically in real terms, adjusted for inflation,” she said. “Do we really want to create a paradigm where farmers actually lose value in their product over time? And it’s especially important here at the World Food Prize because they are addressing issues of agriculture in developing countries which is a great economic opportunity there.”

In addition, Carver noted that biofuels have helped keep energy prices lower than they would be otherwise. “We know in this country that the increase in biofuels that’s been stimulated by the Renewable Fuels Standard has resulted in less of an increase in fuel prices than we would have had without it, by 40 cents a gallon,” she said. “I think it’s important that we think critically about the assumption that biofuels are kind of a culprit.”

Listen to an interview with Victoria here:
wfp-08-victoria.mp3

You can also download the audio with this link:
Victoria Carver interview (mp3)

See photos of the World Food Prize event here.

Robert Zoellick noted that some biofuels are more efficient than others, like sugarcane ethanol in Brazil, and he believes that “biofuels in the future are going to be a critical component of a larger energy mix.” He also acknowledged the importance of creating the marketing framework which he says is “partly what some of the oilseeds-based and corn-based biofuels are about.”

He urges policy makers in the U.S. to consider some ways to change the structure of tariffs and subsidies for ethanol, such as having some “safety-valves” that would allow for the reduction of subsidies when prices reach certain levels.

Listen to Zoellick’s comments here:
wfp-08-zoellick-biofuels.mp3

You can also download the audio with this link: Zoellick on Food and Fuel (mp3)

See photos of the World Food Prize event here.

This year’s World Food Prize honorees, former Senators George McGovern and Bob Dole, pictured here with 2003 World Food Prize laureate Catherine Bertini, were asked what they thought about whether food and fuel production can co-exist.

“I think there is a moral challenge in utilizing food for fuel at a time when there’s so many hungry people in the world,” McGovern said. “On the other hand, if it’s kept within reasonable bounds, I think it can be good for both agriculture and nutrition.” He stressed the need for the development of non-food sources for fuel.

Dole noted the importance of new energy sources in the presidential election and he thinks the answer lies in having a number of alternatives. “There’s switchgrass and other biofuels, and there’s nuclear energy and drilling off-shore,” Dole said. “We gotta do everything we can, it’s not all going to be ethanol.”

Listen to McGovern’s and Dole’s comments here:
wfp-08-winners-biofuels.mp3

You can also download the audio with this link: World Food Prize Winners on Food and Fuel (mp3)

See photos of the World Food Prize event here.

“When you talk about soy biodiesel, you can actually burn the soy and eat it too,” says Jim Hershey, who is executive director for both the World Initiative for Soy in Human Health (WISHH) Program and the World Soy Foundation.

During a World Food Prize luncheon sponsored by the soybean industry on Thursday, Hershey said that when you take the oil to use as a fuel, you’re still left with every bit of protein from the soybean. “By raising more soy for biodiesel, we actually raise more protein and that’s what the world needs,” Hershey said.

Hershey says they have calculated that of the 100 million gallons of soy biodiesel produced in Iowa last year, “the protein that came from those beans would feed 30 billion rations of soy” based on 25 grams per day.

Listen to an interview with Hershey here:
wfp-08-hershey.mp3

You can also download the audio with this link: Jim Hershey at World Food Prize (mp3)

See photos of the World Food Prize event here.

Pioneer president Paul Schickler spoke on a panel at the World Food Prize symposium in Des Moines Wednesday and one of his points is that biotechnology can “address both the food availability issue as well as making a meaningful impact on our dependence on petroleum based products.”

“We can do that through a number of sciences in the market today and additional generations will be on the market in the years ahead,” Schickler said.

Listen to Schickler biofuels comment here:
wfp-08-schickler-biofuels.mp3

You can also download the audio with this link: Paul Schickler on biofuels (mp3)

Schickler also took the first question to the panel, which was “How optimistic are you that the world can reduce hunger by half by 2015?”

Schickler stated that he was very confident that goal could be reached, simply on the basis of increased food production, using hybrid corn as an example. “If you look back throughout the development of hybrid corn, productivity has improved at about one and a half percent per year,” he said. “As we look to the future, we think we can double that, and that has already started to show up in the last 8-10 years through the use of biotechnology, plant genetics and improved agronomic practices.”

Listen to Schickler’s answer to that question here:
wfp-08-schickler.MP3

You can also download the audio with this link: Paul Schickler at World Food Prize (mp3)

See photos of the World Food Prize event here.

Among the panelists was Brazil’s former minister of agriculture Roberto Rodrigues, co-chair of the International Biofuels Commission, who talked about the importance of biofuels development for developing nations. “Biofuels depend enormously on sun,” Rodriques said. “That means that the production of biofuels, bioelectricity and agri-energy in general will happen between the two tropics – the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn – Latin American countries, African countries and the poorest Asian countries,” meaning that the poorest countries could be the producers of the most important commodity – energy.

Rodrigues says “absolutely we are going to improve new technologies and we are able to feed humankind and produce biofuels all together.” He notes that Brazil is a good example of what can be done in that regard and that there is a “myth” that production of sugarcane for ethanol is reducing the production of food. “This year we have a record grain production, but we also have record sugarcane production, record meat production and record production of dairy products -so there is no competition between sugarcane and food in Brazil and we can apply that in African, other Latin American and Asian countries.”

Listen to Rodrigues’ comments here:
wfp-08-roberto.MP3

See photos of the World Food Prize event here.

The keynote speaker for the symposium kickoff Wednesday was Sir Gordon Conway, who is chief scientific adviser for the UK. He talked about the spike in food prices over the past year and listed at least ten underlying causes, demand for biofuels being only one and he did not single it out as being a major culprit. He also pointed out the increasing global population, higher per capita income, increased demand for meat, higher prices for energy and fertilizer, and a shortage of arable land as some of the other factors.

Conway stressed the need to address why we want to produce biofuels and the urgency to move quickly into second and even third generation biofuels – such as cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass and biodiesel from algae. “Maybe we should have a new World Food Prize on this,” Conway said. “In which we transform the world from one dependent on fossil fuels for energy and production of chemicals, into one that depends on plants as a basic source of our economy.”

Listen to Conway’s comments here:
wfp-08-conway-biofuels.mp3

The World Food Prize was established in 1986 by Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug to honor the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. This year’s winners are former U.S. Senators George McGovern and Bob Dole, who are being honored for their work in establishing the McGovern-Dole international school-feeding program which has provided meals to feed more than 22 million children in 41 countries.

See photos of the World Food Prize event here.