Food vs. Fuel
In 2008, the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA) – representing the world’s largest grocery makers – launched a smear campaign against the ethanol industry in an attempt to blame the rising cost of food on American ethanol producers.
Since then, countless academic, economic and government studies have disproven the food vs. fuel myth, concluding that Wall Street speculators, high oil prices and the high costs of manufacturing, packaging and transporting all have far more impact than ethanol on the grocery prices that everyday Americans pay.
Despite the facts, proven over and over again, that there is no substantial link between ethanol production and grocery prices, there are those who are still actively trying to stoke illegitimate fears that demand for corn ethanol will somehow drive up food prices.
Even the World Bank — who published a research paper several years ago claiming biofuels were to blame for rising food prices — reversed its position recently with a new study entitled "Placing the 2006/08 Commodity Price Boom into Perspective." The study's authors found that "the effect of biofuels on food prices has not been as large as originally thought, but that the use of commodities by financial investors (the so-called 'financialization of commodities') may have been partly responsible for the 2007/08 spike." Read this report — and others like it — in our Research & Reports center.
Relevant Reports
- Food vs. Fuel Fallacy Fact Sheet: read some of the untruths that are commonly misrepresented as fact.
- Food vs. Fuel Talking points: help spread the truth about rising food prices.
- Mythbusters: The Truth about Ethanol brochure.
- Ethanol creates both fuel and feed. Read our one pager: Ethanol: A major producer of Animal Feed.
Look up Food vs. Fuel related Press Releases and Food vs. Fuel related blogs
Search our Research and Reports for more Food vs. Fuel information.
