Meat Producers Ask for End to Ethanol Subsidies

Meat producers in America are rightly calling for an end to the subsidies given them by the government in order to misguidedly create ethanol industry.

The American Meat Institute, the National Cattlemen's Beef Assn., the National Chicken Council and the National Turkey Federation call for a level playing field in competition for corn, and they are of course correct.

If the ethanol industry can't survive competitively, it doesn't deserve to survive, and if people reject it as an alternative fuel, than there's no reason for it to be not only forced on people, but also to increase the price of meat as well for consumers.

The ethanol industry is coddled through tariffs on foreign ethanol, as well as receiving the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit.

Government interference in any industry should be forbidden, as it eliminates market forces and creates a pseudo industry that can't survive on its own because consumers wouldn't buy it otherwise.

So when the meat industry has to acquire corn feed, they compete against a government entity in the ethanol industry, which acquires it at subsidized prices.

The beef and pork industries have been devastated because of this ignorant initiative that should never have been allowed in the first place, but now that it has, needs to be ended as quickly as possible.

With the economy down and production prices up for the meat industry, they had to take the losses because of the ethanol subsidies because people wouldn't buy meat when it is too expensive for them in tough economic times.

The meat industry estimates it has lost over $13 bilion as a result of higher corn and soybean prices.

Corn prices are over 4 times higher from 2005 to 2009 as the terrible ethanol policies devastated the industry.