Re: Couple of new articles: even more impact on barley prices could be coming

Bill Velek <billvelek@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> Brew Man wrote:
> 
> > The bill passed by Congress specifically states that there be a
> > "sixfold increase in the use of ethanol as a motor fuel to 36 billion
> > gallons a year by 2022, with 21 billion gallons to be cellulosic
> > ethanol from prairie grass and wood chips".  So the bulk of the
> > increase in ethanol production as mandated by this bill will not come
> > from corn, but instead will come from non-food products.
> 
> That is correct -- the BULK of the increase would be from other than 
> corn -- but that still doesn't negate that we have seen price increases
> from current corn useage for ethanol and the bill does still call for a
> doubling of what is currently produced from CORN.  Regardless of other
> sources of ethanol, that tells me that MORE corn is going to be planted
> for ethanoil than has been so far, and that leads me to conclude that
> the availability of barley (and maybe hops, too) will probably be even
> tighter in the future because of corn grown for ethanol.

There are other inputs than in North America. Farmers here in Scotland
got out of Barley since they couldn't get decent prices from the brewers
and especially the distillers. Now it, along with international prices
has pushed the price up to the point where the farmers are going back
into Barley. If you don't pay your suppliers a living price they will
have no choice but to find something else to produce or go out of
business. Why is that so hard for business to learn?

Peter
-- 
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www.the-brights.net