Big Agriculture versus Big Oil

Newspaper reporters use the term ‘supermajor’ to properly categorize any of the six largest energy companies on planet Earth. Trading under various names all around the world, they are considered to be (in order of magnitude):

ExxonMobil (XOM)

BP (BP)

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS)

Total S.A. (TOT)

Chevron Corporation (CVX)

            ConocoPhillips (COP) 

The supermajors began to appear in the late 1990's as large petroleum companies began to merge, often in an effort to improve economies of scale, hedge against oil price volatility, and reduce large cash reserves through reinvestment. These monsters are driven by profit, and their hunger for a positive return on investment will certainly be the largest contributing factor to the costly development of any future fuels.

Big Agriculture is chipping away at Big Oil's fuel market share by growing a domestic ethanol / biodiesel industry (which is still very much it its infancy). Agriculture commodity companies like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Noble, and Cargill are investing heavily in these new 'green energy' industries, and so too are those companies that specialize in the sugar trade, palm oil, and, to a lesser extent, forestry.

Small family farms hate big agriculture - The growing defiance from small farmers illustrates their increasing frustration with rules that they say penalize them in favor of the industrial producers, who were the source of headline-grabbing disease outbreaks such as the E.coli-infected spinach that killed three people last year and last month's recall of 21.7 million pounds of E.coli-infected ground beef.

"Raising Less Corn, More Hell" is written by George Pyle and dedicated to the memory of his father, who was raised on a Kansas farm.  What the agricultural economy needs, he argues, is a truly free market -- not one kept afloat by federal subsidies and unaccounted environmental damage. The root cause of hunger, he claims, is usually a lack of money. Yet the fear of not having enough food has driven the rise of chemical fertilizers, massive machinery, genetically modified seed, and whatever else will help squeeze greater yields out of every acre.

 
Fuel Ghoul has friends in unusual places, including America’s corn fields. Recently a nice lady from the NCGA (National Corn Growers Association) wrote the Ghoul a friendly personal email wherein she asked him to investigate an interesting domain built to promote the salt of the earth – America’s corn farmers.

Farmer’s Matter is all earth tones, and has lots of pictures of kids in corn fields and it seems to be a friendly green, environmentally safe virtual world… but Fuel Ghoul isn’t fooled.   Big Agriculture is ugly too, and companies like Monsanto, and Archers Daniels Midland and Cargill are just as evil as the oil companies, Exxon Mobile and Royal Dutch Shell. Given the choice, Fuel Ghoul would encourage Big Ag and Big Oil to fight it out for

North America’s energy market - and of course Fuel Ghoul would root for Big Agriculture over Big Oil.

Our nation's corn growers have been hard at work this year. In the USA alone, farmers planted over 93 million acres of corn in 2007, and right now they are busy harvesting the largest corn crop in history.

 

These farmers have stepped up production to help ensure consumers will have enough corn to provide food for their families, feed for their livestock, and fuel for their automobiles. Advances in farming practices have increased the number of people a farmer feeds from just 19 in 1940, to 144 people today. They've been able to accomplish this while lessening their environmental footprint through smart sustainability practices – do they lessen our dependence on foreign petroleum? YES to some extent, through ethanol (corn alcohol) production and biodiesel (corn oil).

Filmmakers – A Thanksgiving Farm Contest

*** A VIDEO PRODUCTION CONTEST ***
Produce a creative video telling the NCGA what ‘are the most significant contributions made by our nation's corn growers? And thank a farmer!’ Submit your videos to www.votigo.com/thankafarmer Videos should be one to two minutes long

 
To find out more about corn growers contributions, and other interesting farming facts, visit the interactive timeline and fun facts section. (This will also give you some good information for your video production).

Fuel Ghoul believes there are a lot of good reasons for Canadians to move to biofuels: We can grow the feedstock locally and process it on site. In Canada, companies such as IOGEN are developing portable systems that can use switch grass, a plant that grows wild on the prairies, or use waste material from the forestry industry. It looks like everyone wins in that scenario, since we have a lot of plant material and new technology for processing it.

Comments

[Windsor Exports]

Manufacturer and Exporter of UTB-650 Romania spare parts, Engine parts, Transmission parts, Hydraulic Parts, Body Parts, Electrical Parts. We are supplier of complete range of Tractorul UTB 650 Romania.

[Renato Vieira]

A great alternative for fuels

We are a renewable fuels' consulting company based in Buffalo, NY. We represent a Brazilian company that has developed an extraordinary biotechnology for producing ethanol out of Sweet Potato, BIOEX Etanol.

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Kind Regards,

Renato Vieira