Still, some experts warn that the price has nowhere to go but down if the market is flooded, and not everyone has forgotten how prices wilted after a massive grain deal with the Soviet Union in the early 1970s and the 1996 drought in China shot corn prices to record highs. Editor's note: This is Part 2 in an Associated Press series on ethanol, whose fortunes as a gasoline additive have risen and fallen with the price of oil, and is now in the middle of a boom. After hovering around $2 a...

But the technological hurdles and costs have been so daunting that most ethanol producers instead relied on heavy government subsidies to squeeze fuel from corn. Senate last week would entice farmers located near ethanol biorefineries to grow dedicated energy crops. Department of Agriculture would determine the likelihood of construction of a future biorefinery, the local potential for feedstock production, the number of interested farmers and a biorefinery's economic impact. Department of...

Beef and poultry prices would also increase since the animals mainly feed on grain corn. It's the main ingredient for the environmentally friendly fuel ethanol which is being used more this year because of government regulations. Ethanol is helping raise the cost of gas, that in turn means businesses pay more for deliveries. Products that contain corn syrup like ketchup will also cost you more. Last month grocery bills rose almost 4% to the highest its been in years. First Gas Prices, Now...

Stronger cash markets this time of year isn t unusual as farmers are busy farming and don t pay attention to the markets and sell grain, but this year, bids are being led higher by ethanol producers buying corn. The real issue is why are the ethanol producers buying corn at these prices and why haven t they already covered their needs? One trader commented, there seems to be plenty of corn available out on the farms, but it is in the wrong place, the eastern belt, not the western belt...

Not only will the Kool-Aid peddlers pass out the Dixie Cups again, they have added a new wrinkle to their solution: the elimination of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) as a measure to increase corn acres to keep prices low in order to expand exports and thereby provide, once again, prosperity for all. Their solution to the farm crisis of the late 1970s was to lower prices paid to farmers in order to reclaim the export volume of 1973-74 and prosperity would follow. With the...

However, he planted corn across the top of all of them and I had a devil of a time cutting the grass between the plots because the sweet corn blocked my exit. I brought him home enough sweet corn seed from the sheep folks up at Platteville to fill those plots. Sweet corn adventure makes new friends, crop. With as many plots he has worked up, he probably will have me with a stand along the road selling corn. After he got done with his tilling I asked, What are you going to plant in all this...