Again if this is old news, I apologize.  I am just catching up.

In an interview with USA Today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack responded
> to questions about a direct trade-off between farm programs and nutrition
> aid and criticism over ethanol and subsidy cuts.
> Vilsack recently made comments that were reported widely by the news media
> that the president's budget makes a direct trade-off of resources from
> farming programs to nutrition for children. "There are a multitude of ways
> in which that could have been phrased, and I probably phrased that
> in-artfully, but budgets are about choices. The president has put his
> priorities on the table, and one of those priorities, but by no means the
> only priority, is greater nutrition for children," Vilsack said.
> Regarding the suggestion made by several interest groups that corn-based
> ethanol increases food prices, Vilsack said, "If there were a direct
> correlation, then we would have seen a decline in food prices. The last
> evidence I saw is that food prices went up, still between 5 percent and 6
> percent in the last quarter, with ethanol dropping dramatically. Prices are
> more directly linked to energy costs of a petroleum nature."
> Speaking about the plight of farmers during the current economic turndown,
> Vilsack said, "The one saving grace, to the extent that there is a saving
> grace in these difficult economic times, is that the farm community,
> generally speaking, is far less leveraged than the general population or
> other businesses and industries. For every dollar in debt, farmers and
> ranchers have $9 of equity or assets. That's substantially better than in
> the last farm crisis in the '80s, when we lost a lot of farms."

VILSACK ANSWERS QUESTIONS ON NUTRITION AND ETHANOL

In an interview with USA Today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack responded to questions about a direct trade-off between farm programs and nutrition aid and criticism over ethanol and subsidy cuts.  Vilsack recently made comments that were reported widely by the news media that the president's budget makes a direct trade-off of resources from farming programs to nutrition for children.  "There are a multitude of ways in which that could have been phrased, and I probably phrased that in-artfully, but budgets are about choices. The president has put his priorities on the table, and one of those priorities, but by no means the only priority, is greater nutrition for children," Vilsack said.  Regarding the suggestion made by several interest groups that corn-based ethanol increases food prices, Vilsack said, "If there were a direct correlation, then we would have seen a decline in food prices. The last evidence I saw is that food prices went up, still between 5 percent and 6 percent in the last quarter, with ethanol dropping dramatically. Prices are more directly linked to energy costs of a petroleum nature.

Ed