First a couple of you guys are quite sharp, Paul the original being just one.

One thing that seems to get ignored is we wouldn't have the amount of corn we have now if it wasn't for ethanol.  Many of those acres that went to corn would have set idle.  We still would have had the drought but without the buffer.  Corn then would have exceeded the highs made.

Secondly the nonsense about food vs fuel is just that, nonsense.  Any acre planted to anything for alternative energy or having a wind generator setting on it is not producing food.  Growing acres of grass, sugar beets or some other cockamamie thing still removes food acres.  Food has been too cheap for too long. 

Corn was $.93 when I started.  At that time there were gas wars and I could purchase gas for $.11 a gallon.  NH3 was $65 a ton as I recall and the one room school house had a teacher making $800 a year.  The new Chevy ran about $1250 I think.  Now extrapolate those prices and see where corn should be today.

The free ride for grain has to come to an end.  We've been told that for decades and it's finally happening with the increase in wealth around the world.  First they ate fish, then chicken, then pork and finally beef.   As diets improve more corn type feeds become necessary.  However land, energy and fertilizer don't necessarily increase proportionately.